Last Week Was the Bureau of Labor Statistics Lying?

When they said unemployment rate dropped to 7.8%?

7.8% Unemployment Numbers Do Not Include California
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-happened-with-jobless-claims-2012-10

Because what I see is a giant government and media conspiracy to falsify the Unemployment numbers exactly one month before obama's election.

2012-10-11T12:33:45Z

Hey pennybags,,,,,,,,,You are mixed up,,,,,,,, Jobless claims are directly related to the unemployment rate.

Hey Zombie,,,,,,,, Jobless claims are directly related to the unemployment rate. When Jobless claims go down, Unemployment rate goes down

Hondo98,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,never mind,,,,,,,,,not gonna waste my time.

Alex,,,,,,,did you read my article? How come you only see the first bold sentence? What about the rest? ,,,,,,,Wrong Alex Jobless rate is used to create the unemployment rate.

Leading Economists Agree Household Unemployment Number Implausible
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/10/economist-unemployment-drop-implausible-a-statistical-quirk/

GE ex-CEO Jack Welch Says Obama Officials Manipulated Unemployment Numbers
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-05/former-ge-ceo-jack-welch-says-white-house-manipulates-jobs-data.html

Unemployment Numbers are Being Fudged
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/02/04/messy-new-estimates-complicate-explanation-for-unemployment-rate-drop/

Medi

2012-10-11T12:35:01Z

Media Reports U-3 Unemployment Numbers
True Unemployment = U-6 Numbers
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

2012-10-11T12:37:06Z

Thanks everyone for all your answers, but I must admit I'm not looking for answers just reactions.

Uncle Pennybags2012-10-11T11:42:35Z

Favorite Answer

You've mixed this up.

Your article is about the weekly jobless claims, which appeared to be down significantly. Not the 7.8% unemployment number.

UPDATE: Negative. The 7.8% unemployment rate number comes from a monthly survey of 60,000 households.

The jobless claims numbers come from state data from number of new unemployment insurance claims. Your article confirms that, and discusses how that number is skewed because California didn't submit that data.

Simply put, the unemployment rate and jobless claims number have nothing to do with each other in the way they are computed.

Look, if you want to say something is screwy with the 7.8% unemployment number, I agree with you. And the next unemployment rate report is issued 4 days before the election, and I think the headline will be, "Unemployment rate again at 8%," because the next household survey will not yield similar results.

Alex2012-10-11T11:50:56Z

Did you even read the article you linked? Like the big bold text that said: "ALL STATES WERE INCLUDED in this week's jobless claims. Assertions that "a large state" was excluded from the report are patently false."

The jobless number issue is unrelated to the unemployment rate. This is a different statistic from a different report (published weekly instead of monthly). It is referring to a report published today, not the one from last week (as the article also says, in the very first sentence).

Lovebelle2012-10-11T12:27:04Z

The BLS is a nonpartisan agency who uses scientific method to come up with these numbers. Politicians play no role when it comes to determining the numbers.

If they did falsify report then it would be fair to say, perhaps all the prior reports were falsified too. So maybe Obama really did do much better than they claimed in the past. Or perhaps Clinton or Reagan did much worse.

Its preposterous to even make a claim that the numbers are fixed and doing so is just another distraction tactic people like to use to take away from the issues. Personally I think its getting old and wish people,would shut up and focus on real issues and stop creating false ones.

Jay2012-10-11T11:44:41Z

The article you cite does not support any conspiracy. It reveals a problem, yes. But hardly a "giant government and media conspiracy to falsify the Unemployment numbers exactly one month before obama's election."

Anonymous2012-10-11T11:46:38Z

No. Read your own article.

Republicans are proven liars. Reagan might not have been lying when he said he'd balance the budget by cutting taxes and increasing spending on defense because he was not that intelligent.

Romney KNOWS he is lying when he says he'll cut the deficit by cutting taxes, and increasing spending on defense and Medicare. He couldn't pass enough loophole closures in a Republican Congress known to be whores for special interest money which is freely available to keep loopholes open.

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