“There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
― Benjamin Disraeli
I used to write a post every time the BLS issued their bullshit jobs propaganda report once per month. I did it during the entire Obama administration, proving month after month the narrative of an improving jobs situation was a crock of shit. I eventually tired of writing the same shit over and over again, so I stopped.
I’ve now listened to Trump and his non-critical thinking minions boast for two years about his miraculous achievements in creating jobs. Whatever. It would take someone with an ounce of mathematical skills to verify the narrative, but why use facts when a narrative works better on the ignorant masses.
Today’s report headlines says we added 196,000 jobs in March, which comes from the Establishment Survey. It’s funny how the MSM and Trump’s sycophants ignore the Household Survey. That survey says the number of employed Americans dropped by 201,000, but the number of unemployed dropped slightly because things are so fucking great in our economy that 369,000 people decided to voluntarily leave the workforce in one month. This shit is just like the American Dream, because you’d have to be asleep to believe it.
And this isn’t some one month hiccup. The Household Survey showed we had 156.9 million Americans employed in December, but only 156.7 million employed in March. Does that sound robust? Does that match the Trump narrative being spun by Kudlow and crew?
I despised Obama and everything he stands for. The BLS is nothing but a propaganda tool for those in power. Trump trashed the BLS and their data when running for president, but has now embraced their fake data. So, it has been consistently fake for both presidents. With about 30 minutes of research, I was able to produce this chart from the BLS Household Survey. It essentially obliterates Trump’s bloviating bullshit.
| BLS Household Survey Data | |||||
| Mar-15 | Mar-17 | Chg | Mar-19 | Chg | |
| Total Working Age Population (mil) | 250.1 | 254.4 | 4.3 | 258.5 | 4.1 |
| Labor Force (mil) | 156.9 | 160.2 | 3.3 | 163.0 | 2.8 |
| Participation Rate | 62.7% | 63.0% | 0.3% | 63.0% | 0.0% |
| Employment to Population Ratio | 59.3% | 60.1% | 0.8% | 60.6% | 0.5% |
| Employed (mil) | 148.3 | 153.0 | 4.7 | 156.7 | 3.7 |
| Unemployed (mil) | 8.6 | 7.2 | -1.4 | 6.2 | -1.0 |
| Unemployment Rate | 5.5% | 4.5% | -1.0% | 3.8% | -0.7% |
| Not in Labor Force (mil) | 93.2 | 94.2 | 1.0 | 95.6 | 1.4 |
It’s so simple, a Federal Reserve lackey, Ivy League academic, or even Herman Caine could understand. I looked at the last two years under Trump versus the previous two years, which was 90% under Obama.
The most obvious data point is that 3.7 million jobs have been added in the last two years under Trump, versus 4.7 million in the last two years under Obama. No spin. Just facts. The Trumpeteers will be outraged by my use of facts to destroy the fake news narrative.
Across the board, Obama’s last two years showed more progress regarding jobs than Trump’s first two years. The number of people not in the labor force is up 1.4 million versus 1.0 million under Obama. The participation rate hasn’t budged in two years, while increasing slightly in Obama’s last two years.
The true employment picture is the number of people in the country not working, versus those who are working. The total working age Americans not working in March 2019 totals 101.8 million. The total working age Americans not working in March 2015 was 101.8 million.
Now for the coup de gras. The 156.7 million employed Americans are supporting the 101.8 million not working. But it gets better. Only 130.9 million are working full-time. But it gets even better. The number of government drones in those figures totals 20.7 million. The taxes siphoned from our paychecks are paying their bloated salaries and benefits.
The stock market will surely soar again based on the false jobs narrative. So it goes. I’ll write another article in two years when I work up sufficient outrage again.
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Who wrote this? Seems accurate and believable, but source, please.
I fucking wrote it.
That was quick. Good work. It takes a trillion dollar deficit to plateau.
You don’t use the F word that often, I like it.
Carry on and arm up.
Jim Quinn? Ex-fucking-scuse me. I liked it and wanted to re-post w/attribution. ‘Administrator’ seemed too anonymous. Just let me know.
You can repost anything from tbp.
Mostly plagiarized.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-05/strong-jobs-headline-hides-broad-based-weakness
What is your point? How does one plagiarize statistics?
Fuck you. I didn’t read anything from Zero Hedge before writing this. I didn’t realize how many douchebags I’ve been attracting to this site.
ZH will be posting my article in short order dickhead.
ZH already did before you plagiarized it as I just proved, Dickhead.
See ya brokedick douchebag.
Synchronicities abound, great minds think alike and Admin, as he has said in his arricle used to call out the blatant lies about unemployment and BLS numbers almost every week!
Don’t comment here without thinking before you hit the submit button bro!
300,000 people turn 65 every month for the next 10 years.
200,000 people enter the work force every month. The BLS drops the aged out of the calculation.
I often wonder how many have gone Galt. Straight white men should do so just to starve the beast. Why support what wants you dead?
If these morons pass UBI and white people qualify, that will be the last day I work.
Vote $2000/month for president.
Also, they’ll create some excuse for excluding white people. Not sure what they’ll do if we all decide to identify as blacks, though – probably bring slavery back, I guess.
And yet more ‘aged’ are forced to continue working just to get by. The younguns are often un-hireable having no work ethic and ridiculous expectations of monetary worth. Large swaths of retail are going under and illegals are all over the construction trades willing to work for less under the table.
I need to hire some young bodies to do yardwork/handyman type work, not one is willing to work for less than $15 hr, and that’s with the pay being in cash. I no longer have the physicality to do what I could do as a youngun so I’m having some challenges finding someone competant and capable. Most just want money and disappear when they realize the job actually entails work.
That’s why God created illegals. They’ll take your 15.00 or even 10.00 and actually WORK for it.
Between my wife and myself – we get just about $5,000 a month in Social Security. I’m 70, and work full time. We bank the SS. Hope I die before the hyperinflation.
Everyones car insurance is gonna skyrocket…..thats why they will usher in driverless cars. The next political theater of why you should give up anonymous freedom of travel is your car insurance rates will triple and you put your life on the line with batshit senile old folks driving. Rather than forcing THEM to buy a driverless car they will force the masses. Its coming….they want total control and transparency of everything you do, think and go….why else is tesla still in business when daily we hear they MAY have enough money to make it just one more quarter. The govt is funding tesla. Fact
Very discouraging. To think the msm blatantly lies to the populace. Seriously … what does that suggest about the times in which we live? As for trump …. there is info/research(?) out there which points to both him and hitlery sharing the same bloodline leading back to England. Translation … our ‘leaders’ are hand-picked and it is all a facade. Like i said very discouraging. At least we don’t have to walk 5 miles … each way … to get our daily water.
I just need ONE. A new one and soon.
Have a phone interview this afternoon. Not bad, but not the one I really want.
Important topic to me at least. The 93.2 in the bottom right should be 90.2. I don’t see where the 101.8 million x 2 comes from, but with population growth that would be a trend in the positive direction at least. A more specific description of the source would be nice. Finding the exact figures used is nontrivial at best. I’m happy to be a douche. Anything to not be a sucker.
I don’t trust government numbers, but what I care about is white male labor participation rate (from FRED).
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300028
The real problem is men aged 45 to 54. This should be prime earning years with the highest salaries. Here’s the depressing data:
March 2015 – 17.3 million employed
March 2019 – 16.9 million employed
If you want a key reason for the upturn in suicides and opiod overdoses among men, here’s your answer.
It’s all from the BLS website. Where the fuck do you get 90.2? Look at the data. Every number comes directly from their reports. The 101.8 comes from adding unemployed plus not in labor force. It’s math.
https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea03.htm
Right. I forget to add the unemployed to the not employed. How stupid of me. However, 250.1 – 159.1 = 90.2. The link is for the preliminary March 2019 numbers only. The household data comes from the CPS survey. Here is a link to monthly archives (presumably not final for the current year but we may suppose for the next year): https://www.bls.gov/bls/news-release/empsit.htm.
On this link (for March 2016) I get presumably final numbers (but who knows?) for March 2015 of 250.1, 156.9, 148.3, 8.6, and 93.2: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_04012016.htm. So apparently the mistake is not 93.2 but 159.1. The 101.8 (=8.6 + 93.2) is good. I did not check the other numbers. A single data source with final numbers would be better because there is always the apples-to-oranges risk that might (or might not?) be documented in the fine print.
The BLS report for March 2015 shows 156.9. You’re making the wrong calculation.
It’s 250.1 – 148.3 -8.6 = 93.2
Here’s the link:
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_04032015.pdf
148.3 + 8.6 = 156.9
It’s math.
Indeed, if your entire existence is based on the ability to rob Peter to pay Paul, you better damn well hope that Peter has a job (or even wants to continue with this parasitic relationship).
Automotive slowing sure isn’t helping manufacturing grow right now. I’ve got mixed feelings, on the one hand, if they bring back cash for clunkers, my work will pick-up. On the other, I’ll probably be forced to turn in my car.
It sure feel like recession is coming, maybe it’s the balance of the last one. It’s like we’ve been in the eye of the storm, and that next wall of wind is coming, and it will be worse than the first.
It’s difficult to muster the energy required to feel outrage anymore. Government and central bankers have been playing the long game, and they’re just wearing normal folks out.
Anyone whose been in a storm at sea understands that there is an occasional hard smack, but that’s not what gets you. What gets you is the repeated smack, after smack, after smack until you’ve got nothing left to fight with.
So really true
When you have to pretend that 50 million invaders living in our country and using our economy for their purposes don’t exist I bet the numbers look good.
It’s a fugazi.
Note their names.
https://www.usapoliticstoday.org/women-busted-food-stamp-fraud/
You whiny babies, move to DC. This place is the pot-o-gold the leprechaun is always looking for.
-sarc
Not really sarc. This place is off the chizains.
On my morning commute today I happened to have the radio on, which I don’t normally do and heard an advertisement soliciting services to employers seeking out potential employees…it started off something like this….”You know unemployment is at all time lows, anybody looking for a job can find one right away…and yada yada yada”…
This blatant HUGE LIE! Got me soo pissed off I turned the radio off for the rest of my commute.
We wonder why we are living through so many crises like opiods and suicides….people internalize the guilt and blame of not being able to be self sufficient or provide for their families because they believe the BIG LIE that there are so many jobs out there….
Every minimum wage job establishment has signs posted in their windows that they are “Hiring” even though they probably aren’t! They just take the application and hold onto it until Corporate asks them to do some hiring.
It’s a fucking joke!
And now The Dotard n Chief, EL Douche says the FED should start another round of Quantitative Easing!!
What a maroon!! And so are all those blind lemming Trumpeteers!
Not true we were hiring at my company for the last 3 months. The problem is the candidate pool is very weak, 75% couldn’t pass drug test, took 3 months to find 25 people.
On the other side they’re firing GM ‘S every week, unsure what they’re replacing them with like race or gender.
I’ll keep you updated.
Plato- The lies to prop up Barry O through 8 years of downhill slide was putrid for sure but the lying that has gone on to keep the MAGA crowd snowed and tuned in to Faux News is off the chain. OTOH, I am seeing the 30 somethings starting to settle into jobs left behind by boomers in financials and they are buying houses and turning into solid adults. There may be hope that somehow by the grace of God we will muddle through.
I realize that the cost of living and property is much lower here than Cali where you reside which would be more conducive to depression and suicide as the income needed would require very high paying jobs which are not increasing. Sometimes you just have to relocate which beats the hell out of offing yourself. I relocated several times in my twenties and thirties to take positions to better my earnings.
BL,
I appreciate your thoughtful response and advice.
I have been thinking of relocating for several years…
It’s tough though, having an ex and a soon to be 8 year old son with her.
He has been put through so much these last few years and he has had a really great year in school this year, catching up from being behind these past 2 years, I would hate to move away without him….i jave been his rock for the past 5 years since her and I split.
The family courts here are a joke and she would make my life a further hell if I tried to take him with me.
No easy choices, and I only have myself to blame for my predicament.
Again, thanks for the advice.
“Across the board, Obama’s last two years showed more progress regarding jobs than Trump’s first two years.”
LMAO, you’re fucking high as TN pine.
Looks like we have another narrative believer. Not good at math I see?
The stupid, it burns.
With crocodile tears and puppy dog eye……you, you mean DjT is not all, THAT?! You mean he too has turned into a, politician?! Just to get re elected!? But he is not even taking a paycheck. Hmmmm, could it be all politicians make their money some, other way? No nope noway i wont believe it. What! They have their own health plan?! They can perform insider trading on wall street!? They pay their sexual harrasment cases out of taxpayer funds,? They get a lifetime pension after 6 years!? Weel shit, why didnt you say so. I shall quit my job tomorrow and focus on becoming a politican. All i have to do is tell people what they want to hear then get rich. Sounds easy. Im in.
If i had time to write an article and solicit replies i would write about this….because i come here 99% for the commenters and 1% for the articles. I learn more from you all, truly enjoy your comments!
The repliers here are very diverse in age, education and wealth and spot on mostly. Even when they dissagree. i am impressed with the degree of diverse and opposing comments and it shapes a great thinking. WHat i see is people with less education are not stupid. With less wealth not lazy. The real fact is ignorance of planning. Most people get menial jobs maybe out of highschool get experience in a blue collar field and when the economy is tight they run back to what they know and have some experience in. THe average bear market takes 3 years to unwind and they since bought a car or house and cannot take risks of opening a business or are in debt and cannot take time off the hourly job to even interview. All of a sudden they wake up ten years later and find they are a blue collar worker and are stuck. Nobody will hire a 30 yr old blue collar, whereas a 22 yr old, the employer says oh you were just gettimg a job and want something better. Kids dont have direction. I blame parents. Kids need a focus and parents shoud be focusing them into jobs that they can grow incomes in. A one man plumber only has 24 hours in a day and can do only so much so his income is limited to pricing power, demand and competition within his area. I took myself through a test when i was 25 and asked if i could add a zero to my paycheck. If i made 25k yr i asked if i could stay in my job or get promoted and add a zero and make 250k in what i was doing. I asked how rare or prolific others were at that level of income in my field. If it were not possible then i changed jobs/careers until i figured out one that would allow me to add three zeros with credibility then i worked my ass off to be the most talented, educated in my field, respected, and competent. It took 20 years and last year i did it. It was an exercise of neccessity when i challenged myself as i had an anxiety attack at age 25 at 1am trying to figure out how i would find enough money in the next week to buy formula for my child since my wifes milk had dried up. Credit cards were maxed and no savings. Truly scary times. I hated myself for not planning and placing my innocent daughter in harms way of a poor debt ridden family with a no skill low educated father. I was mad at myself but rather than giving up or giving in i choose to pay the piper and work my ass off as reparations to my kids for what i had done to them. I refused to allow them to make my mistakes. I refused to allow them to become intimidated by wealth. I refused to allow them not to marry well because their dad was an idiot. I placed them before me as reparations. I made sure they were educated. They would know the arts and be articulate and not embarrass themselves when a wealthy suitor asked them on a date as they would be of quality and had a shot at marrying well to avoid marrying a blue collar laborer. I wanted to allow them an opportunity. I chose to pay the piper for my ignorance of planning and not utilizing critical thinking of planning for the future. I now look at the direction of social, political, economic issues and helped my kids find the right field of work that would either be immune to down turns or be in higher future demand so they would not feel comfort in going back to their pizza making highschool years as a job at age 30. I challenged them to challenge themselves and their thinking. I showed them what critical thinking looks like. I challenged them to figure things out. I have tried to be the best dad i can be. And i have failed often but not for good intentions and effort. Its a failure of my lack of education or insight. I again repeat, poor people are not lazy nor stupid it is a simple matter of not having the guidance of proper planning. It makes me sick when i hesr commenters state they may have their car repoed or are scared of losing their homes. They are not all to blame as they are not stupid or lazy as i have been reading these comments for over 5 years. I challenge anyone here having money issues to work through it using your mind more. Find creative solutions. Long term solutions. I truly wish everyone well and hope things turn out better than you expect. I hate that some of you are having a challenging time. Godspeed to all.
John Galt,
Your story should serve as an inspiration to others. It sounds like your children have a very caring father and Should count themselves as some of the fortunate ones.
I, too come here mainly for the comment section! I have gleaned and learned so much, but as you say eith planning, knowledge is nothing without applying what you’ve learned. That is the trick especially when life throws curveball after curveball.
I enjoyed reading your thoughts. Thanks.
THX plato, you been here a while too!
Article in NY post today was all giddy about the awesome jobs report. The picture associated with the article was quite interesting; it was a pretty gal in her McDonalds outfit serving french fries. Not kidding.
The article was also quite giddy about wage increases. The average hourly worker saw their pay increase by ………. four cents an hour! Really. Woohoo!!!!
Lmao Stucky. At 40 hours a week thats $1.60 then multiplied times 52 weeks thats $83 more gross income a year. I know, i am using full time workers ….big foot is easier to find 5han a full time worker…. The big mack is 28% smaller now and 238% higher priced than 1980.