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Washington Post: Jobless rate drops to 8.9 percent, lowest since 2009; employers add 192K jobs


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If anyone believes these numbers, the government has you exactly where they want you. Gallup has the real numbers at 10.2 percent. Let's not even get into underemployed and those who have given up looking for work and don't count against the unemployment number. Hey, why don't we look at the total workforce as compared to working age population?

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If anyone believes these numbers, the government has you exactly where they want you. Gallup has the real numbers at 10.2 percent. Let's not even get into underemployed and those who have given up looking for work and don't count against the unemployment number. Hey, why don't we look at the total workforce as compared to working age population?

Two simple words for you

"Government Math"

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I was listening to a recent episode of NPR's Planet Money podcast. At the beginning of the segment they drop a statistic and that particular episode pointed out that the unemployment rate for college graduates was around 4% compared to the general population which was something much higher (can't recall the exact figure) that was around or higher than 10%

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The GOP is going to have to get on this, stat. If UE drops below 8% by November 2012.

What's that you say? The GOP is trying to push for cuts in government spending at both the national and state-level?

This is good news for the country. I understand there are other UE metrics, but I don't know if their methodology for calculating the headline number has changed a lot.

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What math do you believe then? Government math when things look bad, but not when its a positive step? Its a step in the right direction, and most of the market agrees that unemployment is turning around.

I, for one, would just like to thank the GOP and the Tea Party for getting into Washington and passing all those job bills they talked about, and also for revoking the "job-killing health care bill." Clearly, those were of vital importance to turning around the economy.

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If anyone believes these numbers, the government has you exactly where they want you. Gallup has the real numbers at 10.2 percent. Let's not even get into underemployed and those who have given up looking for work and don't count against the unemployment number. Hey, why don't we look at the total workforce as compared to working age population?

The percentage is not as important as this:

It is perhaps the best all-around jobs report in three years. While a stronger pace of job creation was recorded for three months last spring, those numbers were artificially inflated by temporary Census hiring. And while many analysts had viewed a rapid decline in the unemployment rate in December and January as too good to be true, the fact that the jobless rate did not retrace some of that improvement was a sign that conditions may indeed be getting better for American workers.

Private employers seem to finally be gaining the confidence to hire. They added 222,000 jobs, partly offset by the loss of 30,000 government jobs. Those gains were broad-based, with every major sector except for retail adding positions. Manufacturers added 33,000 jobs; professional and business services firms added 47,000; and the health-care sector added 36,200.

A couple months ago the unemployment rate dropped even though net jobs were lost. Your criticism at that point would be totally relevant. In this case, the percentage isn't really the important stat as much as the amount of jobs added, especially in sectors like manufacturing, and especially considering that this net increase occurred despite the loss of government jobs.

I don't think anyone is saying things are great now, but this month may have seen the first real progress in cutting into unemployment since it shot up a few years ago. It's a good sign, nothing more.

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If anyone believes these numbers, the government has you exactly where they want you. Gallup has the real numbers at 10.2 percent. Let's not even get into underemployed and those who have given up looking for work and don't count against the unemployment number. Hey, why don't we look at the total workforce as compared to working age population?

Curses and they would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those who use old math and common sense. :)

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it's sad that some people like westbrook36 and december90 are so commited to their anti-obama rhetoric that they simply refuse to believe simple facts. reality has no effect on their opinions.

You look in this same thread in 2005 (300k jobs added in June!) and you'll see the exact same comments coming from the other side

Politics. Gota love it.

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Curses and they would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those who use old math and common sense. :)

More from the article:

The unemployment rate also improved mainly for reasons that suggest underlying improvement in the jobs situation. According to the survey on which that data is based, 250,000 more people described themselves as employed, while 190,000 fewer counted themselves as wanting a job but unable to find one.

A broader measure of joblessness, which also captures people who are working part time but want full-time jobs and those who have given up looking for work out of frustration, also fell, to 15.9 percent from 16.1 percent.

Looks like the article did, in fact, get into underemployed and those who have given up looking for work and don't count against the unemployment number.

You guys are running out of old math.

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If anyone believes these numbers, the government has you exactly where they want you. Gallup has the real numbers at 10.2 percent. Let's not even get into underemployed and those who have given up looking for work and don't count against the unemployment number. Hey, why don't we look at the total workforce as compared to working age population?

Personally, I don't care about the % as much as I care about the # of new jobs. 192k is a good amount of jobs for 1 month. As long as we are moving in that direction I am happy.

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3 years ago we were saying we have to get back to 250k-400k a month to turn this around.

We're doing 100k on average and the number is going down due to them removing those they believe stopped looking.

now i understand we used to do this when unemployment was 13 weeks. But shouldn't the number stay the same if unemployment is 3 years?

Those not looking don't have to right now.

This is not an "Old Math" statement : Its more of a question to those that know what they are talking about.

Way to go ToeJam: It feels good to get one when things are bad.

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Personally, I don't care about the % as much as I care about the # of new jobs. 192k is a good amount of jobs for 1 month. As long as we are moving in that direction I am happy.

How many people entered the work force. 100k a month won't keep up with population growth let alone replace the 4 million lost jobs during the recession.

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