After a month of lower weekly initial unemployment claims, there was a big jump this morning in the number; the figure released was 399,000. This may be an aberrant jump for just this week, or it may be the return to conditions that prevailed for about eight months in 2011. The anemic retail sales figures that were also released (up 0.1%) is another indicator that may point towards continued slow economic growth. Let's hope it is not; it is critical that the USA get its growth rate up.
I did get a kick out of the coverage of these figures; the bias in the media never fails to amaze me. Here is how NBC described recent unemployment data:
"The unemployment rate has fallen sharply in recent months and was 8.5 percent December, but some economists worry the drop has been due in part to discouraged workers dropping out of the labor force."
I particularly like the "some economists worry" line. There is no question about why the unemployment rate is only 8.5%; the answer is that many millions of people have just given up looking for work according to the government so they are no longer counter. If those discouraged workers are not left out of the calculation, the unemployment rate is close to 12%. And, of course, there are also those who are counted as employed because they have part time jobs even though they want full time jobs. With those people included, the unemployed and underemployed rate moves up towards 20%. In other words, it is not that some economists worry about this; it is rather something called the actual facts.
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