Sep 10 2010
Weekly Unemployment Numbers A Bit Hinky
I am not really sure what ‘hinky’ means, but I do know this week’s first time unemployment claims are not something to put a lot of hope into. It seems much of the data was estimated by bureaucrats. Next week’s numbers will be more solid, but will also cover a short week due to labor day. I am sure this economy will begin to turn around once people are confident the voters will slay the liberal beast in DC come November. That is probably the best stimulus the nation could receive.
Ed Morrisey has been running an updated chart all summer. (can’t find the link right now, but he runs updates pretty often) The point is that in the spring of this year, first time unemployment claims came to a plataeu of about 440,000 – 480,000. The numbers have wandered up and down in that range but have never gone outside of it.
This is similar to you error analysis on the global warming claims, but even moreso – these are not scientific numbers, they are very loose measurements with an almost limitless number of variables. The only real way to determine the variance in a flatline measurment is by observation over time, and the numbers this year strongly indicate that any number within the 440, 000 – 480,000 range is within the overall error of measurement and thus should be considered to be a continuation of the flatline.
And as to what would actually be a *good* number – for the economy to start actually adding jobs instead of shedding them, this number needs to go to less than 300,000 on a weekly basis, and for a truely healthy economy they need to go to less than 200,000. Anything in the 400 range means that the economy is shedding jobs and is still in horrible shape.
In light of those observations, it becomes clear how meaningless a reported number of “Only 450,000!” is, and how lame is the attempt to paint this number as a sign of something good.
An observation, relating to your link about how these numbers were in large part only guessed at, not measured: They finally got a shot at making up the numbers, and they couldn’t do any better than THIS? That’s just pathetic.
p.s. an honest agency would have simply said “we couldn’t get the measured data this week because of external reasons, so we’re just going to wait till next week when we can have real numbers.”
How would that be worse than just making crap up and hoping no one notices?
AJ,
The “Post-99 weekers” on long term unemployment are now starting to fall off the unemployment rolls.
Those people are still unemployed…but not counted.
Everything else this administration does is made up crap. Why be surprised with this particular crap? It is well known this administration is using only those people who are currently on unemployment. They don’t count the people whose unemployment has expired.
Also they count a part time job the same as a full time job. There’s really no telling what the real figures of unemployment are.
[…] Video: When attack ads backfire – hotair.com 09/10/2010 Vetting fail. more… Weekly Unemployment Numbers A Bit Hinky – strata-sphere.com 09/10/2010 I am not really sure what ‘hinky’ means, but I do […]
This just in from the office of the President:
“The. Weekly. Unemployment. Numbers. Are. NOT. Hinky. That. Is. All.”
Me thinks the Whitehouse gets the weekly numbers leaked so sets the expectations bar about 15,000- 20,000 higher so each week the media hacks can report unexpectedly good news.
By this time next year I expect the expected weekly number will be near 999,000 so tha t when the unexpected number comes in it will only be 975,000 which is 24,000 less than the expected thus good news!
At some point we will all be out of jobs and on extended or extended, extended, or extended, extended, extended unemployment so the number expected weekly will be near zero weekly thus extremely good news when it comes in as zero and 100% unemployed.
See how wonderfull our Messiah and his ruling elitist followers are! They have destroyed our finances, our healthcare, our employment prospects, ruined our cars, taken over our financial institutions and decided not to protect our borders.
I’m sure glad Michelle is proud now.