Statistics are great--no matter what they say, they are easy to manipulate to create whatever impression you want.
Case in point: today's unemployment numbers from the federal government.
On the surface the jobs numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics looked fantastic. Jobs jumped by 330,000. That's almost enough to keep up with the number of illegal aliens the Biden Administration let in!
But dig into the numbers and something surprising happens...the number of government jobs and jobs in the "private sector" that are essentially government jobs, make up a huge fraction of the increase. Then there is the permanent vs. temporary jobs, which tilt things to the worse even more.
Government jobs added: 71,000
— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) April 5, 2024
Manufacturing jobs added: 0 https://t.co/M3dk1kFHY5 pic.twitter.com/ItSf5dkAjc
In other words, even without any potential future revisions, the numbers are pretty pathetic. When you are racking up $1 trillion in federal debt every few months, the cost per job is astronomical and, of course, unsustainable.
U.S. Foreign-born population grew by 224,000 last month, per official numbers from the BLS. That alone is way above pre-Biden trends but also comes on top of a 1,160,000 increase in February. In just two months, the foreign born population increased by 1.384 million ppl. pic.twitter.com/ztCYSZn0X7
— Chris (@chriswithans) April 5, 2024
Jobs held by native-born Americans, not the new arrivals, are actually DOWN from pre-pandemic levels, telling us that American citizens are losing jobs while new arrivals are gaining them, which is hardly what most of us think of when talking about a "booming" economy.
Booming for whom? Many of the jobs "created" are actually social service jobs--many of which are about taking care of the very expensive illegal migrants.
What is going on is very clear now: part-time jobs are provided to 10 million refugees who were admitted through the southern border. Meanwhile, full-time jobs with good wages and benefits are cut. BLS makes a magic mixture of this to claim huge jobs growth.
— 471TO (@TOzgokmen) April 5, 2024
What is happening… https://t.co/mdXRYhpKuv
Goods-producing jobs are not looking good at all, while part-time service jobs, many in social services, are booming. Funded, of course, by those trillions in debt being added to the bottom line this year. We are on track to add $4 trillion or so in debt in a "booming" economy, and we are now in a position where the country spends more on interest on the debt than on defense.
Think about that. We are eating our seed corn, and the Biden Administration calls it a feast. A cornucopia!
There are other indications of market weakness. Our neighbor to the north is seeing unemployment spike, not a decrease. While a disconnect between the US and Canada is plausible, the difference between the household survey numbers and the establishment numbers suggest a juking of the numbers. The jobs that supposedly exist vs the ones that people say they are in differ too much and for too long to be 100% trustworthy.
The unemployment rate in Canada jumped to 6.1% in March from 5.8% in the earlier month, the highest since October 2021, and sharply above market expectations of 5.9%.
— CutTheCrapInvesting (@67Dodge) April 5, 2024
The unemployed population jumped by 60,000 to 1.260 million.
In the meantime, net employment dropped by 2,200…
Other numbers look...suspicious. Not technically impossible, but unprecedented. Have you ever seen an economic statistic look exactly the same for 10 months? Look at this graph:
This seems like a statistical impossibility for two series to hold the same ratio for almost a year. Is the BLS making numbers up? https://t.co/GFvPAkoKbG
— Greg (@GS_CapSF) April 5, 2024
The temporary jobs numbers also indicate that the flood of government money distorts the official numbers by quite a bit. If you look at what people are saying to the government and what the government is saying to us, it sure looks like those temporary jobs--many going to migrants--dramatically inflate the numbers.
Why the unemployment rate can go up even if jobless claims remain low, in BLS own words: “The unemployment data derived from the household survey in no way depend upon the eligibility for or receipt of unemployment insurance benefits.”
— Anna Wong (@AnnaEconomist) April 3, 2024
If you also believe that immigration drive… pic.twitter.com/zF0izVk6qD
Government numbers also don't match other indicators from the private sector, which are much more gloomy. When you look into what is happening in the real economy, not the one invented by the Biden Administration, the picture radically changes. The government arrows point up, which the private sector numbers often do not.
The ISM Manufacturing & Services Employment components are showing continued weakness that is not mirrored by the BLS nonfarm payroll figures.
— Eric Basmajian (@EPBResearch) April 3, 2024
ISM data shows a degradation in employment starting November 2023. pic.twitter.com/Uhawx8Vh98
The ISM Manufacturing & Services Employment components are showing continued weakness that is not mirrored by the BLS nonfarm payroll figures.
— Eric Basmajian (@EPBResearch) April 3, 2024
ISM data shows a degradation in employment starting November 2023. pic.twitter.com/Uhawx8Vh98
The revision numbers--changes to previous statistics have been consistently downwards, indicating that numbers get artificially inflated when reported and then adjusted downwards when nobody is looking. This has been the trend for a year or more. The obvious answer is that the administration wants good headlines, not to tell the truth.
Shocking, I know.
Overall the numbers indicate a very unhealthy economy propped up by government spending at a ridiculous cost per job, and most of those jobs going to foreign-born people, likely migrants that Biden is letting in. The numbers also are likely to be revised downward due to juking of the stats.
If you account for the millions of people missing from the labor market today, the unemployment rate isn't 3.8% - it's btwn 6.5% and 7.7% depending on which dataset you prefer to use: pic.twitter.com/r8D8ApFBjr
— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) April 5, 2024
If you are a Keynesian, you might like these numbers--government dumping money into what amounts to digging and filling in holes, but if you are interested in a healthy and productive economy that ensures prosperity for Americans you will think they look pretty bad.
Alfredo Ortiz of the Job Creators Network hit the nail on the head:
“Looking under the hood of today’s jobs report shows it isn’t the home run that Democrats and the media claim. Approximately, half of all jobs created last month came in unproductive government or quasi-government healthcare sectors. Full-time jobs continue to decline, while part-time jobs are on the rise. And average wages are growing slower than inflation again, meaning Americans are suffering declining living standards. The Main Street labor market is far weaker than the topline numbers or the conditions on Wall Street or K Street suggest.”
Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
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