Obama uses his GM company to help hide real unemployment rate

‘Obama-Motors’ Skew Jobless Numbers

July 15th, 2010

From the perpetually surprised economic mavens at Reuters:

US jobless claims fall to near 2-yr low last week

WASHINGTON | Thu Jul 15, 2010

WASHINGTON, July 15 (Reuters) – New U.S. claims for unemployment insurance fell more than expected last week to their lowest level in nearly two years as seasonal layoffs eased at factories, government data showed on Thursday.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 29,000 to a seasonally adjusted 429,000 last week, the lowest since late August 2008, the Labor Department said.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected claims to fall to 450,000 from the previously reported 454,000, which was revised up to 458,000 in Thursday’s report…

What’s this? Last week’s jobless claims were revised up again? Talk about ‘unexpected.’

(For the record, last week the Reuters jobless report read: "Analysts polled by Reuters had expected claims to fall to 460,000 from the previously reported 472,000, which was revised up to 475,000 in Thursday’s report.")

Notice, by the way, how these constant revisions are a two-fer for the administration. Before they are revised up, they hide the bad news. Then, after they are revised up, they make the next week’s news look that much better.

You have to hand it to the Labor Department. It is a great system.

New claims for jobless benefits normally rise this time of the year as manufacturers, including auto makers, implement annual shut downs. However, General Motors is keeping the majority of its plants open during the annual summer retooling shutdown to meet demand for some models.

A Labor Department official said layoffs that are normally scheduled for this time of the year did not appear to have materialized…

See the article below for more on this.

Claims for jobless benefits have been above levels that are normally associated with sustainable job growth, even though companies are no longer aggressively dismissing workers.

In the week ended July 3, the number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid jumped 247,000 to 4.68 million, the Labor Department said. The level was well above market expectations for 4.41 million.

The insured unemployment rate, which measures the percentage of the insured labor force that is jobless, rose to 3.7 percent during that period from 3.5 percent in the prior week.

And yet we are supposed to believe that new unemployment claims have dropped dramatically.