You got it. As I said in my post above, just wait for the revisions. The final April unemployment will end up greater than 9%, and that’s with their phony Birth/Death adjustments.

flyfisher on May 8, 2009 at 1:48 PM

I’m SHOCKED, SHOCKED to hear that Obama would release phony birth information!

The problem is that they suffer under the delusion that all of this is caused by the government not spending enough. Just look at Paul Krugman: the guy is stuck on a mental feedback loop where the failure of spending to stimulate the economy means more spending must be done.

Count to 10 on May 8, 2009 at 11:03 AM

I may have heard that argument before. All the money we throw at education is not working so we better throw more money at it. Pakistan is failing lets throw more money at them. etc.

Update: Ed Morrissey notes (H/T reader Darth Aggie) that the only reason the April numbers were not the 6th month of 600,000+ job losses is because 72,000 low paying, temporary census jobs hid the true toll of the lack of any federal stimulus. These fe…

Yep, it’s Barack Obama’s best month yet, and the smallest number since Obama was elected. Still, unemployment rose to 8.9 percent, the highest it’s been since 1983. HotAir notes that the smaller job loss numbers come on the back of……

Job losses slow more than expected

HondaV65 on May 8, 2009 at 1:38 PM

You got it. As I said in my post above, just wait for the revisions. The final April unemployment will end up greater than 9%, and that’s with their phony Birth/Death adjustments.

Botton line: the 8.9% figure is an extrememly cooked number. Also, keep in mind that both February and March were revised down by 30,000 and 36,000 respectively. Expect the final April numbers to be revised downward as well.

Final thought, U-6 is a better guide than U-3 anyway. U-6 unemployment stands at 15.8%. A guy with a $500k mortgage who lost his job in middle management who has settled for part-time work in the paint department at Home Depot isn’t considered unemployed, yet he’s burning through his savings and won’t be able to keep up his mortgage for long. There are many people in that situation.

So they went with the old capitalist’s retailer’s trick of saying it’s 8.9%

What a bunch of idiots. They think we are stupid.

Governments used stimulus money to hire workers in April. Most of those jobs are on “shovel-ready projects,” and won’t be permanent employment…

Wanna bet? When has the Federal government ever cut its own employment? Seriously. Ever?

Hundreds of thousands…Is that normal?

JetBoy on May 8, 2009 at 10:22 AM

Actually, it probably is.

In 1988 (as a teenager), I worked as a Census pre-canvasser for the ‘90 Census. In rural areas, Census employees have to drive every road in a county, update maps, and verify (in person, with the occupant) the mailing address for each property, and map that address on a map. Addresses needed to be verified before Census forms could be mailed, to cut down on any possible fraud using fake addresses. There were at least a dozen of us for our county.

I racked up quite a few miles on my car (they paid standard mileage rates). It wasn’t bad work, but painstakingly long. Although I did learn all the back roads in my county and how to back really well out of driveways… especially the long winding gravel ones…

Maybe I’ll sell myself to cougars.

I’ve been out of work for 6 months. Desperate times call for awesome measures

blatantblue on May 8, 2009 at 10:51 AM

+1

Do it. :)

My Verizon wireless news headline yesterday was that jobless claims “dramatically decline(d)”.

I see now whom they sleep with.

Add that to the mix.

Those 15% under-employed Americans are proving that Americans WOULD AND WILL do those low paying jobs that progressives swore Americans wouldn’t do. What the progressives meant is that progressives draw the line as to what THEY won’t do, rather sponging off others than roll up the sleeves and dig in, rather importing illegal aliens to the workforce or legal green card skilled workers to the workforce than allow Americans employment.

elduende on May 8, 2009 at 12:19 PM

Ace’s site has it. The graph is from Obama’s recovery.org. The dark line is unemployment if the porkulus passed; the light line is if it didn’t pass.

Wow great graph. Thank you. Hey do you have source information on the numbers used to compile?

Prosperity through beancounting!

Our new flag: United Banana Republic of America

What else is cooking?

In addition the “birth-death adjustment” was +226,000, close to double the previous month. That’s the computer model that “estimates” the number of jobs that are created in the economy but unreported.

February was revised down from -651k to -681k (-30,000) and March was revised from -663k to -699k (-36,000). See a pattern there? That’s 66,000 jobs that were reported as existing but revised out later.

If they don’t start doing so in about 2 months, they expect Christmas to be just awful. And if christmas is awful, 2010 is going to be epically bad.

Given that the republicans dont stand for anything, saying the democrats are wrong is all they got.

lorien1973 on May 8, 2009 at 12:07 PM

Ding!

Some of the Republican leadership seems to be getting their act together, but their message delivery still stucks a$$.