Hocus Pocus With The Employment Numbers
by Big Dog on Jul 11, 2011 at 04:33 Political
I have trouble figuring out the jobs numbers that the government puts out. I am very competent in math but I never learned the hocus-pocus kind of math the government uses. Obama and his sycophants keep saying that he has created a few million jobs since he signed the stimulus bill but there are 1.9 million fewer people working today then there were when it was signed. How did he add all those jobs and have a net decrease? It would seem that they were losing jobs, not gaining them.
It is like you invest 10,000 dollars with your broker because he tells you that you will get $1000 a month on your investment. If after two years you have $9000, how did you actually increase?
The problem is they come up with these numbers by using some kind of voodoo that estimates jobs created by new companies. They look into a crystal ball and pull a number out of their, ahem, rectal cavities and then claim that this is the number of employees these fictitious and completely imagined companies hired. Then in a month or two they revise the numbers down but no one seems to pay attention to that.
Then there is the hocus-pocus of changing the numbers completely to give something different. The government reported that 18,000 jobs had been created in June but this is based on revising down the number of jobs available in May. If the revision had not been made then the number for June would have been 26,000 jobs, LOST. Yep, without this sleight of hand there would have been a net decrease of 26,000.
Imagined jobs from fictitious companies and changed numbers throw a monkey wrench into the works and add to the instability.
It also explains how they can claim they have created a few million jobs when there are 1.9 million fewer than when the great and mighty stimulus was signed.
Maybe I should try using the government math made easy methodology when I figure my taxes.
I bet they would know how to do math correctly when they audited me…
To paraphrase a quote popularized in the US by Mark Twain, there are three kinds of lies; lies, damned lies, and government numbers…
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: fuzzy math, jobs numbers, lies, statistics
“How did he add all those jobs and have a net decrease?”
It’s actually 2.3 million now with recent data instead of 1.9. Half of the change in employment (and the participation rate) is that the baby boomers are retiring. The other part is still a matter of remembering that jobs get added and jobs go away at the same time. Reports model the stimulus to suggest about 2.5 million jobs exist today because of the stimulus that would not otherwise exist. That is not to say that the stimulus had a net increase of 2.5 million jobs. That’s a different thing entirely.
“The problem is they come up with these numbers by using some kind of voodoo that estimates jobs created by new companies.”
Are you talking about the birth/death model again? There is nothing voodoo about statistics.
“Then in a month or two they revise the numbers down but no one seems to pay attention to that.”
Revisions for the birth/death model get little attention simply because they don’t change things more than a few thousand here and there. Regular monthly revisions from job reports have been revised upward for the most part over the last 12 months except for the June and May reports as job growth has slowed.
“If the revision had not been made then the number for June would have been 26,000 jobs, LOST.”
I’m not understanding your thinking on that one. BLS records jobs by the month they are created in and they revise those months up or down as more data comes in. You’re suggesting we tally the change into a single month and get a net decrease or something? That defeats the purpose of tracking monthly job numbers.
There is nothing voodoo about statistics yep and the exact quote is lies, damned lies and statistics. You can make anything the way you want to if you manipulate the numbers just right.
Those companies do NOT EXIST. The birth death rate model is erroneous and it assumes a few hundred thousand here and there but that is not taking place. PERIOD.
The article makes that clear. Just find me all these companies that are starting up and hiring people. I want to see actual people being hired, not an assumption that is inaccurate.
The numbers stayed pretty much the same all along and then were suddenly revised in May? Something is not right here.
Baby boomers retiring? There are 150000 new entrants into the job market each month. And if this is the case why revise so drastically in one month instead of doing it month by month.
The revisions are based on those faulty imagined companies. But, the numbers do not look good and they will not look good. They shot their wad with stimulus money that only went to unions and to balance the budgets of states and now that it is gone, there will be no money to keep paying people and they will soon be gone. They delayed the inevitable by bailing out states and unions. The unions and the states will petition for more money but they will not get it.
“The birth death rate model is erroneous and it assumes a few hundred thousand here and there but that is not taking place.”
You need to understand one thing about the birth/death model. It is not 100% accurate but it helps BLS estimates get closer to 100% accuracy than it would without using the model. Birth/death is not designed to inflate numbers but give the most accurate picture of jobs any given month which is the goal of BLS.
“The numbers stayed pretty much the same all along and then were suddenly revised in May? … And if this is the case why revise so drastically in one month instead of doing it month by month.”
Maybe we’re talking about different sets of revisions. What are you talking about?
“There are 150000 new entrants into the job market each month.”
CBO recently projected that this is more like 90,000.
Adam, Obama is a LIAR- period. He would say ANYTHING just to advance his agenda, which, from what I have been able to observe, is living the good life at our expense- when is he EVER going to do anything FOR the American people, and stop doing things TO us?
So what do BLS methodologies have to do with Obama being a liar?
Nothing- he is just a compulsive liar- he can’t help himself. Combine that with an ego that makes him a legend in his own mind (but nowhere else),and you have him.
He has to be embarrassing to liberals- he can’t actually do squat. He’d be a failure anywhere, except for his support group (all his czars)because HE DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING EXCEPT SPEAK.
He’s a puppet, with Soro’s hand waaaaaaaaaaaaay up bari’s backside.
You do know that Obama doesn’t have any say over how the BLS gets it’s numbers and revises it’s numbers, right? I can see you have fun simply firing off meaningless irrelevant insults, but I thought I’d just double check and clear that up for you.
No, Obama doesn’t embarrass liberals. We still love the guy by large margins.
Obama doesn’t have but a handful more “czars” than Bush had but of course it’s OK if you’re a Republican, right?
And regardless of the movement of boomers if you add jobs but end up with a decrease then you lost jobs. And they estimate the stimulus was responsible for 2.5 million that would not exist. Most of them are teachers and other public sector employees who were not let go because the money was used to supplement the state budgets. It is gone now so what will they do?
Cutting taxes, simplifying the tax code and not spending stimulus money would have resulted in an increase and we would be in a lot better shape.
See Reagan…
“And regardless of the movement of boomers if you add jobs but end up with a decrease then you lost jobs.”
No, jobs added or lost is only one part of estimating the workforce. Other factors are involved like population increase and decrease. This is the same reason we can add well beyond the 90,000 or 150,000 we grow by but still keep the unemployment number virtually unchanged each month.
“Most of them are teachers and other public sector employees who were not let go because the money was used to supplement the state budgets.”
What do you base that idea on?
I base it on an actual economist who got the information from Recovery.org (you know, the gov’s official tracking place).
“Based on the Recovery.gov data, more than two third of the 594,754.3 jobs “created or saved” with the stimulus funds were “created or saved” in the Department of Education (see chart).”
Veronique de Rugy
Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center.
She was previously a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
and a policy analyst at the Cato Institute. Her research interests include
the federal budget, homeland security, tax competition, and financial
privacy issues.
She writes a column for Reason Magazine and blogs at The Corner on National
Review Online.
She has a PhD in economics from the University of Paris-Sorbonne.
The one time you find a real economist and you didn’t even need one. You could have just pointed me to the data to convince me.
No, I needed both. If I sent you the data you would interpret it differently and claim that no experts interpret it that way. By sending you data from the regime and a real economist who looked at it (as part of something else being looked at) you won’t be able to say that no professional agrees blah, blah.
And what do you mean the one time I find a real economist? Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, names ring a bell? These guys are economists who have a great deal more experience than the hacks in the regime (the faux economists).
“If I sent you the data you would interpret it differently and claim that no experts interpret it that way.”
Funny. I was just thinking that if I’d used that data to make my own argument you’d have just said something like it was administration lies to cover their butts.
I still wish you’d go into detail about the revisions above because I get the feeling you’re incorrect in your thinking there.
I am gonna soooooooooo celebrate obama’s downfall- and it is coming- his lies are the only thing in his admin that are transparent, and he needs to be taken to the woodshed and shown what happens to liars and traitors.