Ezra Klein: September jobs report: Debunking the jobs report conspiracy theories

[highplainsdem]

I found this WaPo column via a link from Ezra Klein, who also tweeted the comment, "And yes, the fact that this post even needed to be written is depressing."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/05/september-jobs-report-debunking-the-jobs-report-conspiracy-theories/

We’ve hit that moment in the election when people begin to lose their minds. Case in point, within minutes of the jobs report, Twitter filled with Republicans claiming the books were somehow cooked, the numbers aren’t real, etc.

-snip-

Let’s get one thing out of the way: The data was not, as Jack Welch suggested in a now-infamous tweet, manipulated. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set up to ensure the White House has no ability to influence it. As labor economist Betsey Stevenson wrote, “anyone who thinks that political folks can manipulate the unemployment data are completely ignorant of how the BLS works and how the data are compiled.” Plus, if the White House somehow was manipulating the data, don’t you think they would have made the payroll number look a bit better than 114,000? No one would have batted an eye at 160,000.

The fact is that there’s not much that needs to be explained here. We’ve seen drops like this — and even drops bigger than this — before. Between July and August the unemployment rate dropped from 8.3 percent to 8.1 percent — two-tenths of one percent. November-December of 2011 also saw a .2 percent drop. November-December of 2010 saw a .4 percent drop. This isn’t some incredible aberration. The fact that the unemployment rate broke under the psychologically important 8 percent line is making this number feel bigger to people than it really is.

-snip-

This is an encouraging report. What it tells us is that the labor market has been a bit better over the last few months than we thought, and that the recovery hasn’t slowed in the ways we feared. What the response to it tells us is that the election is driving people a little bit crazy.

[VWolf]

1. "the election is driving people a little bit crazy"

Especially those hell bent on getting the socialist/fascist/muslim/communist out of office, who are dumping millions into Rmoney's campaign.

Sucks to be them.

[Blue Idaho]

2. Tea Baggers will destroy America to save the republican party.

What a pile of Ass Hats.

[DLine]

3. Its pretty bad when almost half the country seems to be praying for bad news..

Lets not forget IF Romney were to pull out a miracle victory, the same stats they have claimed were BS will suddenly be their proof that Romney has turned the country around.

[abumbyanyothername]

4. I am guessing that this report may benefit from

an overweighting of construction jobs in the seasonal adjustment model.

The same error that made the August report look so dismal.

The number of people working in construction is WAY less than their model, but they haven't modified their seasonal adjustments to compensate for that.

[bullwinkle428]

5. Is Donald Trump going to Hawaii to search for the real jobs report?