It’s another weekend here in the land of the unemployed/underemployed and the latest jobs report is due. Last month the unemployment number held steady at 9.7%. Today the news is not good -- unemployment has jumped up to 9.9% — not good, unless you are working in the Mainstream Media or the White House, then it’s great news.
If reality is the biggest success in TV these days then the news departments of the major networks should consider adding some reality to their programming. Then again, perhaps the news outlets were simply looking for something positive amid all the bed we’ve had of late. From the attempted bombing in Times Square, to the growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the latest stock market meltdown – the news has not been very happy.
Or maybe the MSM believes that cheerleading has been added to the definition of journalism.
A quick scan of MSNBC’s website and one is hard pressed to find a mention of the growing number of Americans who are unemployed; instead there is an item stating “U.S. economy adds 290,000 jobs, most in four years.”
Over at CNN.com you have to go down nine items before the jobs data is mentioned and there again the fact of the increasing unemployment seems to have been missed as CNN wants us to know “U.S. gains 290,000 jobs.”
Wow! That sounds great!
But what about the increase in the unemployment number? How can we have a four year high when it comes to the increase of jobs created and then see the number of people who are not working is on the rise? It’s mystifying, but fortunately we have CBS Marketwatch to explain it all to us.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 9.9% from 9.7% owing to a big increase in the labor force.
What? Huh? We had a “big increase in the labor force” in April? How did that happen? College grads have not been released into the labor pool and we did not have some spike in immigration. So how did the labor force grow?
Couldn’t have been all those temporary census workers, could it?
While I am happy to see that almost 300,000 folks found suitable employment last month, it does not thrill me to hear that the ranks of my unemployed/underemployed brothers and sisters have again increased to nearly 10%. Neither do I need it hidden from me or sugar-coated by a media that by now has forfeited all claims to objectivity, and instead functions as a wholly owned subsidiary of the White House spin machine.
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71 Comments
Obama's spin is rubbish. He wants us to believe that the rise in unemployment is because people took a break from looking and started on the hunt again.
What BS. You apply for benefits and you exhaust them. Then you fall off the radar.
No one contacts the unemployment office and says, "Hey guys, I've still got three months of benefits left but I need a break from documenting my search. I'll get back to you when I start looking again."
That's pure nonsense. Yet all three networks focused on the "growth" and allowed Obama to spin his yarn without questioning it.
Maybe his cheerleading will actually work, but don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys, Ben Pike, Tony Phyrillas, greychampion, Rick Small and others. Rick Small said: Earth to Media: Unemployment Numbers Are Like Golf Scores — the Lower the Better http://bit.ly/9gvJHN (via @BigJournalism) [...]
Evidently when in pursuit of a leftist utopia your hard pressed to be bothered with something so insignificant as joblessness. I imagine that the old media will understand the seriousness of unemployment soon enough given their recent financial performance.
But think of how many more people depend on gov't than there were before! Future democrat voters!
You would think the President, who likes to go golfing (especially at inappropriate times), would understand this analogy better than the media. I figure that once the President gets it, the media will "get it" too, if you know what I mean.
The amateurs in the WH are waiting for all those "green" jobs to materialize. We are headed the way of Spain and about 20% official unemployment and more like 30% real under/unemployment. They do not have a clue.
"Green Jobs" = Caddies
I think you're being kind to the media with the USC cheerleaders, but I understand why you don't put Helen Thomas and her ilk in their place. There just isn't enough eye-bleach for something that awful.
Wait another 2 months when all the kids that finish high school enter for full time jobs,
the 600,000 plus illegals and blacks all the census jobs went to are over and you'll have another million plus without a job.
Kinda interesting that 20 million Americans have no job, starving and killing themselves and their is that many illegals on the loose in this country
Wait wait wait….
This just in! AZ has seen a drastic decrease in unemployment rolls as over 100,000 illegal migrants left the state!
"You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, if you know what I mean."
Lets face it, whatever the anointed one says, the msm sucks up and spits right back out unedited to its audience. And, of course, the proglibs all start drooling at their "master" who has managed to convince them that 9.9% unemployment is great and Bush's 4.3% was horrible. and these meatheads are running this country!!! ANYBODY WHO IS NOT FRIGHTENED OF THESE PEOPLE NEEDS HEAVY DUTY PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH LARGE DOSES OF DRUGS TO REDUCE THE SWELLING IN THEIR BRAINS.
REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER, REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER, REMEMBER………..
It's simple: When a Democrat who the media likes they say things like "an increase in jobs" or "largest number of ____" but when it's a Republican who the media doesn't like they say things like "highest rate of joblessness in ___ years" or "highest percentage of unemployment" etc. Fact is they said the sky would fall when Bush was still in if unemployment reached 10%. Now it has and none of the liberal media mentions it. I am shocked.
Actually under- and unemployed jumped to 17.1% from 16.9%. This is more significant, and more realevant than the 9.9% simple unemployment number, or the 290,000 jobs picked up. Why is this? While 290,000 more people became employed we know by the incease in under- and unemployed that most of these people only found temporary jobs, or settled for part time or low paying postions. The 17.1% number is the TRUE measure.
Only an illiterate meron would believe what the O-Team is saying. It's like their global warmongering crap. Whatever happens it's global warmongering. Here, whatever the numbers are, it's good.
Obama keeps getting confused between jumping at hoops and tossing gutter balls. He can't tell whether a larger or smaller number is better, so he gives up and says whatever it is is good.
If unemployment went to 100%, he would note that as a major achievement of the O-Team. On the other hand if it dropped too much he would consider his "Fun-Damn-mental Transmogrification" of america to be failing.
Does Team-O even know which side of a horse you get down from?
Answer: You don't get down from a horse; you get down from a duck.
Liberals scratch their heads, conservatives smirk at that one.
Simple.
290,000 new government "jobs" added.
300,000 real private sector jobs lost.
10 reasons I voted Democrat…
1 – Freedom of speech is fine as long as I am not offended by it.
2 – I am 26, sponging off my mom and now I get free Health Care.
3 – The government has the right to tax your earnings and give me things I want.
4 – Murdering helpless babies is ok as long as we keep all death row inmates alive.
5 – Mexican migrants have a right to free health care and education at your expense.
6 – Pouring water on a terrorist's face is horrible, but killing a baby in the womb is good.
7 – No one needs a gun, there is always a cop standing by to protect me from criminals.
8 – I know there is Global Warning even though the weatherman can't tell if it will rain next week.
9 – Profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but taxing the same gallon of gas at 25% is good.
10 – Businesses do not need profits, all profits should be used to support migrant Mexican workers.
NEW – Democrats are Going Down… http://usataxpayer.org/htm/goingdown.asp
TRAITORS… http://usataxpayer.org/?0072194997
10 reasons I voted Democrat…
1 – Freedom of speech is fine as long as I am not offended by it.
2 – I am 26, sponging off my mom and now I get free Health Care.
3 – The government has the right to tax your earnings and give me things I want.
4 – Murdering helpless babies is ok as long as we keep all death row inmates alive.
5 – Mexican migrants have a right to free health care and education at your expense.
6 – Pouring water on a terrorist's face is horrible, but killing a baby in the womb is good.
7 – No one needs a gun, there is always a cop standing by to protect me from criminals.
8 – I know there is Global Warning even though the weatherman can't tell if it will rain next week.
9 – Profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but taxing the same gallon of gas at 25% is good.
10 – Businesses do not need profits, all profits should be used to support migrant Mexican workers.
NEW – Democrats are Going Down… http://usataxpayer.org/htm/goingdown.asp
TRAITORS… http://usataxpayer.org/?0072194997
10 reasons I voted Democrat…
1 – Freedom of speech is fine as long as I am not offended by it.
2 – I am 26, sponging off my mom and now I get free Health Care.
3 – The government has the right to tax your earnings and give me things I want.
4 – Murdering helpless babies is ok as long as we keep all death row inmates alive.
5 – Mexican migrants have a right to free health care and education at your expense.
6 – Pouring water on a terrorist's face is horrible, but killing a baby in the womb is good.
7 – No one needs a gun, there is always a cop standing by to protect me from criminals.
8 – I know there is Global Warning even though the weatherman can't tell if it will rain next week.
9 – Profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but taxing the same gallon of gas at 25% is good.
10 – Businesses do not need profits, all profits should be used to support migrant Mexican workers.
NEW – Democrats are Going Down… http://usataxpayer.org/htm/goingdown.asp
TRAITORS… http://usataxpayer.org/?0072194997
Unbelievable! The Upside Down World is Spinning on his Spin! Congress is going to get to the bottom of the Market Crash! Where were they when it crashed in 2008 down 777 pts.in 1-Day, but helped the Master Obama recover in the Polls???
Stormtrooper: Let me see your identification.
Obi-Wan: [with a small wave of his hand] You don't need to see his identification.
Stormtrooper: We don't need to see his identification.
Obi-Wan: These aren't the droids you're looking for.
Stormtrooper: These aren't the droids we're looking for.
Obi-Wan: He can go about his business.
Stormtrooper: You can go about your business.
Obi-Wan: Move along.
Stormtrooper: Move along… move along.
[...] Originally posted here: » Earth to Media: Unemployment Numbers Are Like Golf Scores — the … [...]
And grounds keepers.
[...] » Earth to Media: Unemployment Numbers Are Like Golf Scores — the … [...]
[...] See the article here: » Earth to Media: Unemployment Numbers Are Like Golf Scores — the … [...]
[...] here to read the rest: » Earth to Media: Unemployment Numbers Are Like Golf Scores — the … Posted in Numbers | Tags: a-four-year, four-year, jobs-created, rise, see-the, the-increase, [...]
Wait another 2 months when all the kids that finish high school enter for full time jobs,
the 600,000 plus illegals and blacks all the census jobs went to are over and you'll have another million plus without a job.
Kinda interesting that 20 million Americans have no job, starving and killing themselves and their is that many illegals on the loose in this country
Lets to the math:
9.9% unemployment
+++ some number of under employment
+++ some number of not yet entered employment due to lack of jobs
+++ some number of people who fell of the rolls which can't seem to be identified
================================
equals Obamanomics is a complete failure!
Actually, for once the numbers do make sense. The 290,000 gain is a seasonally adjusted figure, but the unadjusted figure was 1,158,000 (both numbers still preliminary, of course). A surge in hiring that big would be expected to catch the notice of people who had given up looking, hence people who had stopped looking started looking again. That would increase the size of the labor force. The problem is that a surge that big (almost 0.9%) should have been reflected in the population survey as well. Why wasn't it? And weekly unemployment claims are still running in the neighborhood of 450,000.
Really, Mike!?! You'll use any excuse you can to post pictures of cheerleaders.
"What BS. You apply for benefits and you exhaust them. Then you fall off the radar. "
…….and then when the benefits get extended, again , there you are! Back on the radar!
I know I'm not a Rhodes scholar, but I don't get this BS. I heard this story and thought, "Huh?"
The second time I heard it, I was a little more coherent, I thought, "What?"
I've heard it several times, and I guess you have to drink the koolaid to reach understanding, because I still don't get it.
Wahahahaha!
Never heard that one. But my Grandma always told us to lay down for a comforter when we told her we were going to lay down for a nap.
Hey man. Back off the SC cheerleaders. They may be spoiled and clueless about where we are in the time line of history but those chicks still have the balls to wear wool in the SO Cal heat.
Talk about taking one for the team.
What really pissed me off about USC is that Katie Couric received the Walter Cronkite Award for "journalism" on campus. Not all SC fans are Spoiled Rotten Children. Some of us aren't afraid to get are hands dirty. And to give that wanna-be Barbie an award for journalism is enough to knock some die hards out of the SC merchandise market.
What in the hell went wrong at Troy?
[...] Earth To Media: Unemployment Numbers Are Like Golf Scores — The Lower The Better [...]
I guess if the unemployment rate goes up to 11%, then the White House will claim that the recession is over! I never really understood their claim that things are actually getting better with the unemployment rate going UP. If what they say is true and the only reason the unemployment rate is going up is because more people are looking for jobs, then the last few months have all been a lie. According to their logic, the unemployment rate should have been much higher simply because the people NOT looking for jobs were NOT counted. The White House can't have it both ways. Either people are counted or they're not. Whatever the "math" being used, the economy is still horrible and it's not getting better anytime soon, especially with team Obama in office. Even Democrats are beginning to understand that.
[...] » Earth to Media: Unemployment Numbers Are Like Golf Scores — the … [...]
Disclaimer: I am not an economist…
I know that the unemployment rate is usually "seasonally adjusted" and includes all sorts of variables. Here's a simple chart straight from Washington: unemployment rate for "full-time labor force" has increased fairly steadily since President Obama entered the White House. This particular stat was 6.6% in November '08, was 9.0% in January '09 and is now 10.3% from a January '10 high of 11.4%.
http://bit.ly/cOqs0j
Are these numbers the fault of the previous administration? I don't feel qualified to say, but whatever is being done to change things and "stem the tide" doesn't seem to be working.
In 2003, when George W. Bush was being compared to Herbert Hoover, the left was sneering at adding 1.4 million jobs over an 18 month window:
http://motorcitytimes.com/mct/2010/05/scary-graph...
The unemployment rate rose because people returned to the workforce. That IS good news! It proves that Americans are more confident – and rightly so. The economy is adding jobs.
For you to pretend not to understand this demonstrates that you're either naive or a liar.
An illegal immigrant with a long rap sheet got a $145,000 parting gift from New York City taxpayers before he was deported, after a federal judge ruled his civil rights had been violated when he was held too long on Rikers Island.
Federal rules allow local law enforcement to detain suspected illegal immigrants for 48 hours after their criminal cases are resolved, to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement a chance to pick them up and move them to federal facilities.
Former Brooklyn resident Cecil Harvey, 55 — backed by an immigration-rights advocacy group — argued that his rights were violated when he spent more than a month in a Rikers holding pen before being transferred to ICE.
Harvey was shipped to his native Barbados in October 2007; the city settled his civil suit late last year.
The landmark settlement has prompted the Correction Department to dump scores of illegal immigrants on the streets, since federal officials often fail to pick them up within the required two-day window.
Federal immigration agents have office space on Rikers Island, and the city allows them to interview roughly 4,000 inmates each year. They put a hold, or "detainer," on 3,200 of those inmates who they discover are illegals.
Disclaimer: I am STILL not an economist…and this makes no sense! http://bit.ly/bfjSvL Obama claims "Our economy added 290,000 jobs in April — the most in four years. It's an encouraging sign that we're headed in the right direction."
http://bit.ly/4AX74X The first set of info in this data file ("goods-producing) seems to agree that 290,000 non-farm jobs were added in April, so I guess the rest of the data should match the chart. (Data in this file is in "thousands." )
HOWEVER…Obama's chart makes it appear that the US lost jobs every month in 2008 and most months in 2009 (November was the exception) and now in 2010 is making a dramatic comeback. The "goods-producing" data file only shows an average for 2008 (and it is "just" a drop of 800,000 non-farm jobs; yes, that's a lot.) The average for 2009 shows a loss of… nearly 6 MILLION jobs. The blue lines didn't drop THAT low.
If you look at the next section "service providing", 2008 showed an increase of about 100,000 jobs while 2009 shows that those jobs were lost, along with 3 million others.
The monthly totals are seasonally adjusted, and while they do show increases in 2010, neither category has reached the April 2009 total (12-month high) and neither is approaching the jobs available in 2008.
So, exactly how is Obama making it better? Maybe I'm misreading the Bureau of Labor Statistics charts (entirely possible; see disclaimer) or someone is twisting the data to embellish Obama's record.
If I'm wrong, you can tell me; don't be bashful!
The economy added more jobs last month than it had in four years. Over the last two months, employers have been adding jobs at a rate faster than the population is growing. If that continues, the unemployment rate will soon start falling.
It rose last month because of a something of a statistical quirk. The Labor Department counts people as officially unemployed only if they are not working and looking for work.
Between March and April, there was a surge in the number of out-of-work people who started looked for work. That — not job losses — is what swelled the ranks of the officially jobless and caused the unemployment rate to rise to 9.9 percent, from 9.7 percent.
The share of adults who were out of work for any reason — officially unemployed, retired, staying home with children, given up looking for work — fell last month, to 41.2 percent, from 41.4 percent.
This is a normal part of any recovery. Unemployment rates will stay flat as the economy expands for the next several months, then it will drop as employers are forced to replace temp workers with permanent full-time workers and the pool of discouraged job seekers has been depleted.
Every leftist who every took total control of the government of any country was willing to "sacrifice" (read that "kill") 20% of the population, just to make sure the other 80% would pay attention in the future.
What's a few million jobs? I fully believe PrezzoBama is willing to lose millions of lives. We'll see.
We're both. We're naive liars.
And, we're violent racists, so watch out if you're some sort of minority.
Haven't you read of our desperate deeds? Didn't you see our fearsome faces on CNN and MSNBC? I'm tellin' ya, some of those grannies in the Tea Party might look pretty innocuous, but don't be fooled. They'll deliver a roundhouse kick a la Chuck Norris, right up side the head of any poor minority who dares disagree.
Good to see you swallowed the MSM narrative. You should've spat, instead. Still, though, I hope it was good for you.
I fail to understand the motive of our current media – what are then going to get out of it? I know GE's (MSNBC) Immelt', has a lot to gain supporting this administration but what do the rest get? NYT, Washington Post, CBS, ABC, CNN…what's in it for them ? We're seeing it now, restrictions and attacks on the freedom speech with the FCC, the Fairness Doctrine, even the case against the Hutaree Militia. Don't they realize in a progressive socialist environment they are the first thing that gets controlled? Control the messenger, control the message, control the people. Investigative reporting, dead in America 1776 – 2008 RIP
You sound bitter.
Maybe take a walk and turn off the computer for one day. Enjoy the real world instead of whining about that which you do not understand.
I'll whine now, you can whine in November.
Look around you. Take a look at Western Europe. Do you not understand that PrezzoBama's goal is to imitate their "success"? Do you not understand that there is no success there to emulate?
And you want to talk about that which I don't understand? Puh-leeze.
No one presently in office, having served two terms, should have a job after November. The feast at the festival needs to end. Pelosi needs to be cut off, NO more jets, no more tax funded liquor bills, no more extravagant world-wide, jet set globe trotting vacations for the harlot of the west. These bastards can fly commerical, just like real Americans!
Someone at the Labor Department is scratching their head and saying, "Golf Rules? Really?"
Uh "Facts"….can you point out what signs there are of recovery that would back up your assertion that these numbers are a normal part of it? And, what can you point to that indicates an economic expansion over the next several months? As far as companies replacing temps with full time workers, what exactly will drive them to do so? How about companies (like mine) which are operating way understaffed with no temps, no contractors, and absolutely no backfill happening when someone leaves or is fired, where would that expansion be happening in that case?
Given the very real load of taxes and regulations which have been put in place with more possibilities in the pipeline, businesses (large or small) are not hiring and are still laying off.
Your premises are utterly false.
Just because you keep repeating it (along with the press) does not make it so. Call the rest of us anything you want and that too will not make what you are saying true nor bring others to your side.
[...] » Earth to Media: Unemployment Numbers Are Like Golf Scores — the … [...]
[...] » Earth to Media: Unemployment Numbers Are Like Golf Scores — the … [...]
Spartans.
The Government lies to us and we pretend to believe them.
Tea Party 101
* Be open and honest
* Speak truthfully
* Listen to and work for the people
* Adhere to the Constitution and your oath of office
* Support smaller government
* Lower taxes
“We need to act today, to preserve tomorrow”
– Ronald Reagan
Restore the Republic,
God Bless America
I think about the people run off the golf course so Obama can golf. I hope they are peed. He can make a lot of enemies that way!
It's a normal part of any recovery.
Do you yourself have a hope of recovery? And I don't mean of the economic or employment variety.
Get real. Your hero, PrezzoBama, is a job-killing machine. It is always thus, when the extreme left is in power.
FDR, LBJ, Jimma Keeyotta, PrezzoBama — Four of a kind.
I did not hear ONE negative comment by the MSM on the unemployment rate RISING!
All I heard was how great the economy is recovering.
Journalism is DEAD in America.
I'll take a shot…the math actually is a little wonky.
The unemployment rate going up from 9.7% to 9.9% can be viewed as a good thing because it means the denominator in the equation went up. What you have here is a comparision of the number employed in one of two surveys the government does over the number who report they are either working or seeking work. So…if the numerator went up by 290,000 (laughable, since 20% of that was temporary census positions) but the denominator went up by…err…more than 290,000. So, what it means is that more people decided to look for work.
HOWEVER…the "true" unemployment rate that includes discouraged and underemployed workers actually went up. So, in the end, there really isn't any good news…just damned government statistics.
Call any economist, republican or democrat, Keysian or Friedman, Chicago School or Austrian School, and they will teach you that unemployment goes UP when economies come out of a recession. There's a simple reason for this: the "official" unemployment rate is defined as people who are not working but are actively seeking a job. When people, who were previously out of the workforce on the believe that no jobs exist, restart their job searches – those people are unemployed.
Play these numbers how you want, the Census hiring you latch onto if you feel like it, but an increase in unemployment is simply economics. Uninformed punditry doesn't teach the public anything.
[...] » Earth to Media: Unemployment Numbers Are Like Golf Scores — the Lower the Better ̵… [...]
Zero-bama and his crew just don't understand simple concepts. The cockroaches in the White House, aided and abetted by a well-kneepaded media are trying to feed us all a sh!t sandwich. The unemployment number is a big enough turd, which has gotten .2% bigger this month, to choke us all. The smoke and mirrors about the added jobs is like extra bread so they hope we taste less of what's actually in the sandwich.
Communism is for Fascists!
"We need to cut taxes and raise government spending on defense and entitlements, so the federal deficit rises. When the outstanding debt becomes impossible to manage, then we'll blame the Democrats."
Ronald Reagan
[...] Earth to Media: Unemployment Numbers Are Like Golf Scores — the Lower the Better [...]
[...] » Earth to Media: Unemployment Numbers Are Like Golf Scores — the … [...]
redefining the terms does not change the underlying realities. spin the news & the numbers however you want, but conveniently observing that more people have decided to try to re-enter the job market (for a variety of reasons, including expiring benefits) after a period of being unemployed doesn't change the fact that they were, and still are, without jobs. trying to claim an uptick in the 'official' unemployment rate may, MAY, signify a recovery might enjoy a modicum of legitimacy in a purely academic, economics calculation, but from both a political and human standpoint, it's bullsh!t. by that logic, we must be in the midst of one helluva recovery because unemployment numbers have been going up for quite awhile now! trying to claim this latest increase is really, really-we-mean-it-this-time-honest!, the sign of a turn around is just pathetic.
furthermore, if a Republican president tried to claim this was actually good news, the MSM would eat him alive.
[...] Mike Opelka of Big Journalism adds, “Earth to Media: Unemployment Numbers Are Like Golf Scores — the Lower the Better.” [...]
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