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Posted on 07/08/2011 11:52:06 AM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
Every time someone brings up the backing out of the birth death adjustment from the Non-Farm Payrolls number (which 99% of the time are additive), economists get all defensive and say you can't really use that number because it is akin to comparing apples to oranges, it is only applicable for the Non-Seasonally Adjusted NFP data (while the numbers that make the headlines are the seasonally adjusted ones) which of course means that the conversion from the NSA to SA number is a product of a multivariate equation with two unknowns (the B/D adjustment and the actual seasonal adjustment). Of course, this is just how the BLS likes it: after all this gives them plausible deniability to blame either X or Y or a combination thereof, but never disclose just what is the culprit for any specific discrepancy. So what does the BLS tell us to do when attempting to eliminate the B/D benefit? Simple: add or subtract the B/D adjustment from the Non-Seasonally Adjusted number. Yet when doing it on a quantized, monthly basis this is impossible due to the abovementioned layering of the seasonal adjustment.
Well, there is a very simple workaround: just look at the Year over Year change in the Non-Seasonally adjusted numbers. After all that will eliminate all the intrayear seasonal adjustments, leaving just two clean numbers at the beginning and end of the full year sequence. This works like a charm when looking at June 2010 and June 2011 numbers, on both a Seasonal and Non-Seasonally Adjusted basis. The difference in the NSA series is 1,171K jobs, while the SA is 1,036K, almost a perfect match. And after all we have been hearing for so long how the administration has added 1 million jobs in the past year.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
Oh well. I suppose if we are going to have a Potemkin "recovery" to accompany our hollowed-out economy, we might as well enjoy the increasingly creative denials of incipient danger from the geniuses who helped yank the plug out of the nation's washtub and yet insist the water level is rising.
If someone translated this into English, a few people might actually be able to discuss the subject.
there are lies, damn lies, and statistics...
how about 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot?
yes, I’m being a smart aleck...but not by much
Statistics aside, I believe in the Carville Precept.
And I believe Baraq is toast in 2012.
It would be nice to see a weekly stat that showed how much money is collected in payroll taxes.
Translated:
9.2% unemployment is A LIE.
Boss: “What’s two plus two?”
Economist: “What do you want it to be?”
“there are lies, damn lies, and statistics...
how about 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot?”
People can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that
I betcha that an honest investigation would show that there were more “deaths” of business in that timeframe than there were “births”.
Of the approximately 1 million new jobs the Bureau of Labor Statistics say were created in the past year over 600,000 come from net new businesses which the BLS claims to have been started.
I have to wonder where these phantom businesses are, because they certainly aren't in all of the office and retail buildings with more and more "for lease" signs up.
According to this site: http://www.shadowstats.com/article/an-analysis-of-withheld-income-employment-tax-receipts
The US Treasury publishes daily numbers showing the federal government’s daily cashflows.
The statement for July 7, 2011 is in pdf form here: https://www.fms.treas.gov/fmsweb/viewDTSFiles?dir=w&fname=11070700.pdf
It doesn’t strictly separate out withheld income taxes from FICA and FUTA taxes, but it does show in Table IV that the US Treasury received federal tax deposits (i.e., withheld income taxes and payroll taxes) of $7,164,000,000 on July 7th, has taken in $38,701,000,000 for the month of July so far, and has taken in a total of $1,354,968,000,000 ($1.3 Trillion, basically) for the current fiscal year.
The website I linked to above has some good discussion on what to be careful of when reading these daily releases.
Indeed!
It’s the (lack of) Jobs Stupid.
Can anyone explain what this birth/death adjustment is all about?
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