Weekly Jobless Claims Still Above 400,000

This morning's jobless claims number of 414,000 was, once again, above the "mystical" level of 400,000 that liberals seem to be eagerly waiting for but, which, has only happened a handful to times since this President took office; as if, somehow, a jobless claims number of 399,999 would be something to really cheer about.

But, this week there was no bogeyman for the left-wing media to blame for the continuation of claims above 400,000; like the "Verizon Strike" excuse of 3 weeks ago. If you recall, the media tried to give Obama cover for the lousy August 25th number of 417,000 claims by fraudulently claiming that it was all due to the Verizon workers strike that drove the number above 400,000 (Click here to See My Blog Entry of August 25th: Verizon Strike Blamed For Jump In Jobless Claims? ). Yet, since then and even before the Verizon strike, the claims number had always been above the 400,000 level. The only thing the left-wing media could come up with about this week's crappy numbers were the words: "claims rose unexpectedly".

The reality is that Obama has a 400,000 jobless claims number problem. That's why we continue to have an unemployment rate above 9%. To really make any dent in that unemployment rate and get those 14 million out-of-work Americans back to work, we really need the jobless claims number to be below 300,000; not just below 400,000. And, I, for one, just don't see that happening for a very long time; no matter what Obama unveils tonight in his jobs speech. His stimulus didn't work and I am quite sure that tonight's plan won't work. That's because Obama is mired in failed Keynesian and silly academic beliefs and is totally clueless as to what the economy needs to actually create jobs.

Striking Verizon Workers Were Counted As Unemployed???

According to the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) at the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) own website, workers involved in an "industrial dispute" -- a strike -- are counted as being employed and should never appear in any section of the Monthly Unemployment Report as being unemployed. Here's the actual text from the pertinent BLS FAQ:

"Who is counted as employed?

Not all of the wide range of job situations in the American economy fit neatly into a given category. For example, people are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey week. This includes all part-time and temporary work, as well as regular full-time, year-round employment. Persons also are counted as employed if they have a job at which they did not work during the survey week, whether they were paid or not, because they were:

On vacation
Ill
Experiencing child-care problems
Taking care of some other family or personal obligation
On maternity or paternity leave
Involved in an industrial dispute
Prevented from working by bad weather"

Yet, in this morning's Employment Report, 45,000 striking Verizon workers were tallied in the unemployment stats for "Information Technology" workers and, then, were rolled up into the final count; reflecting zero jobs being gained for the month. This fact was duly noted in the first paragraph of this morning's BLS news release, when it was stated: "a decline in information employment reflected a strike". (Click here to see the actual BLS new release) However, if the striking workers were properly counted as being employed, there should have been a job growth of 45,000 jobs for the month instead of the reported zero.

So, what gives? Are striking workers now suddenly being included as part of the unemployment stats when they have never been counted this way in the past? Was the inclusion of the striking Verizon workers a convenient way of making this report look worse than it really was in order to help Obama get support for his jobs speech and plan of next week? Something really stinks on ice with this one! After all, the BLS is a government agency that reports to Obama through the Secretary of Labor and, I wouldn't put it passed that agency to tweak the numbers for the greatest possible political leverage. Then, next month, the BLS will just correct the problem with one of their many and constant statistical "revisions". In the meantime, we just might be seeing another one of Obama's deceitful manipulations of the facts.

Verizon Strike Blamed For Jump In Jobless Claims?

This morning, the jobless claims number for the week rose to 417,000. This was substantially higher than the consensus projection of only 400,000.

Now, if you read all the "media" reports with regard to this "unexpected" jump, you would get the impression that it was "all" due to striking Verizon workers filing for unemployment; even though those workers are ineligible for any unemployment benefits (Click here to See the CNN Story: Verizon workers filed thousands of unemployment claims). Similarly, CNBC's headline for the job's story stated: "Weekly Claims Above Key Mark Thanks to Verizon Strike". Then, USA Today captioned their version of the story: "Verizon strikers inflate weekly unemployment numbers".

The Verizon story is a clear deception being floated by the Obama Administration and all too happily carried forth by the mainstream media. Even if you back out the supposed 8,500 striking workers who erroneously filed for jobless benefits, the adjusted number would still be 8,500 claims higher than the consensus estimate of 400,000; and, that's the story that the "Verizon headlines" are intentionally trying to hide. Once again, the mainstream media comes to the aid of Obama. They know that many Americans are simply headline readers and not interested in digging down into the weeds to figure out what's really going on.