Posted on 03/09/2012 9:56:07 AM PST by tobyhill
The economy added 227,000 jobs in February, but the unemployment rate didn't change at all.
Woe is the White House -- which would love to have the lowest rate possible heading into the general election.
But why didn't the unemployment rate change if the economy added jobs?
The unemployment rate measures the percent of the labor force that is unemployed.
The unemployed are individuals who have actively looked for work over the previous four weeks. Looking for work can mean having a job interview, sending out resumes, or even something as simple as calling friends or relatives in hopes of finding a job.
The number of unemployed is then divided by the total labor force. And in February, the size of the labor force increased -- possibly as discouraged workers started looking for work again.
As the labor force swelled, so did the number of new jobs necessary to drop the unemployment rate.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
They gave the set-up for this story last month.
‘The soft bigotry of low expectations’ comes to mind.
It used to be assumed that you needed to create between 200K to 220K new jobs just to stay ‘even’ — that is no net move in the UE rate.
I recently saw that figure adjusted downward to something like 150K, and I was thinking, “Whoa, you can’t just do that without any explanation!”
Seems that the BLS is not only jiggering the stats but also the underlying expectations.
See tagline.
Somebody help!!! If new claims for unemployment are running around 350,000 per week and they are only adding around 225,000 per month how can the unemployment rate not go up? I don't seem to be smart enough to figure it out.
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