Initial jobless claims–a measure of layoffs–were down by 30,000 to a seasonally adjusted 339,000 in the week ended Oct. 6, the Labor Department said Thursday.
The Labor Department factors this trend into its seasonally adjusted figures. But last week, a Labor economist said one “large” state didn’t report additional quarterly figures as expected, accounting for a substantial part of the decrease. The official wouldn’t disclose which state, but said it would be released with next week’s report as usual.
“One omission by one state–you wouldn’t think it would be a big deal, but in this case it drove the number down by 10%,” said analyst Stephen Stanley with Pierpont Securities.
The BLS told BusinessInsider that ALL STATES WERE INCLUDED in this week's jobless claims. Assertions that "a large state" was excluded from the report are patently false.
...BUT...
It is likely that some of the jobless claims in one large state--California--were not included in the claims reported to the Department of Labor this week.
Within every inch of this administration, it's all about semantics and the optics, preferably favorable to Obama's reelection at all times. But ZeroHedge has had enough with the BLS antics, releasing a stark graph comparing the headline-grabbers on jobless claims (the blue line) versus the true weekly 'revisions'. Notice how miserably constant the red line remains...
"Just in time for tonight’s debate, let’s give Uncle Joe some talking points, even if he and the “knucklehead vote” are the only ones who believe them." ~ politicalwoman @ RedState
