Reality: 1.2 MILLION people dropped out of the work force in one month!
As Weasel Zippers states, "Don’t buy into today’s BS unemployment rate drop the MSM and the Dems have been crowing over." Zero Hedge reports:
A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that's not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation. As for the quality of jobs, as withholding taxes roll over Year over year, it can only mean that the US is replacing high paying FIRE jobs with low paying construction and manufacturing. So much for the improvement.
...but just in time for Barry's re-election! Please tell me you see through this, folks.
ADDENDUM: James Pethokoukis details precisely why the official 8.3% unemployment rate is a phony number, what it means for Obama’s reelection, algorithms & equations included, and concludes...
Bottom line: The unemployment rate is dropping because economic growth continues to be so anemic that nearly 4 million Americans have quit looking for work and have been disappeared by the Labor Department. This still isn’t much of a recovery.
Allen West posted on his Facebook page:
“Can someone tell me how employment in the black community has improved at a rate three times the national average in just a few months?? With numbers like today, urban communities should be well on their way to economic recovery then! There is something suspicious about the job numbers released today and it has me very concerned. Sept/2011 Black unemployment: 15.9 %, Americans overall: 9.0 %. Jan/2012 Black unemployment: 13.6 %, Americans overall: 8.3%. Is this dramatic supposed decrease in black unemployment a result of job creation or is someone playing around with the census numbers?? Americans need truth, not these number games.”
And of course Levin covered this one Friday evening saying, "If the economy is turning around, it's thanks to Obama's policies...if it's not, it's the fault of Congress and Bush!"
"It's cooking the books...They cooked the numbers."
