Truth Team unemployment facts, CNN Money Orwellian reporting, 8.3 percent unemployment, 227000 jobs added, How many jobs lost?, 476000 added to workforce?

“The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon.
And since the party is in full control of all records, and in
equally full control of the minds of it’s members, it follows
that the past is whatever the party chooses to make it. Six
means eighteen, two plus two equals five, war is peace,
freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.”…George Orwell, “1984”

“the Times of the nineteenth of December had published the official forecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the fourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. Today’s issue contained a statement of the actual output, from which it appeared that the forecasts were in every instance grossly wrong. Winston’s job was to rectify the original figures by making them agree with the later ones.”…George Orwell, “1984”

“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed
–if all records told the same tale–then the lie passed into
history and became truth. “Who controls the past,” ran the
Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present
controls the past.”…George Orwell, “1984″

As I promised recently, I am here to assist the Truth Team in keeping the candidates honest by reporting the facts

The Labor Department, Obama Administration, Mainstream media and Truth Team would have us believe that the alleged influx of 476,000 extra people in the labor force was the reason for the unemplyment rate not dropping. Retirement timing is affected by birth date and other more random events such as the economy and length of service and should be somewhat evenly dispersed during the year. The biggest labor entry events are graduation from high school, college or other schools. So where did the big influx of employees come from? Illegal aliens?

CNN Money gives one of it’s best theatric, Orwellian efforts to make the 8.3 percent (already manipulated by Orwell math) unemployment rate look normal and explained by population growth.

From CNN Money March 9, 2012.

“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.

Before Obama even took office, America had lost 4.4 million jobs. Track his progress since then.

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.

Behind the jobs recovery

Just take a look at the last two months for an example of how this works.

In February, 227,000 jobs were added and the unemployment rate didn’t change. Compare that to January, when the economy added 243,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped from 8.5% to 8.3%.

The difference?

In January, the labor force participation rate decreased by 0.3%. In February, it increased by 0.2%.

And that 0.2% increase in February translated to 476,000 extra people in the labor force, preventing a decline in the unemployment rate.

So it’s possible that an improving economy can actually cause the unemployment rate to remain static, or even rise, as more discouraged workers start mailing resumes.

Much has been made of how low — or high — the unemployment rate might be on Election Day, and whether a particular number will be enough to ensure a victory for President Obama, or sink his candidacy.

Of course, the unemployment rate is not the best measure of economic strength, but the number plays a large role in campaign trail rhetoric.”

“Assuming the labor force participation rate holds steady, and the population grows at the same rate it has over the previous year, the economy needs to add 149,288 jobs per month to get the unemployment rate to 8%.”

http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/09/news/economy/unemployment-election/

“and the population grows at the same rate it has over the previous year”

The only population event aside from aging (and that was explained above) that affects the labor force is immigration. Legal immigration is monitored and controlled. Are they implying that illegal aliens affected the workforce numbers?

Reread the CNN report and other reports you have heard lately after reading the following from the US Labor Department March 9, 2012.

“Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 227,000 in February, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Employment rose in professional and businesses services, health care and social
assistance, leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, and mining.

Household Survey Data

The number of unemployed persons, at 12.8 million, was essentially unchanged in February. The unemployment rate held at 8.3 percent, 0.8 percentage point below the August 2011 rate.”
“Both the labor force and employment rose in February. The civilian labor force
participation rate, at 63.9 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 58.6 percent, edged up over the month. (See table A-1.)

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged at 8.1 million in February. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job. (See table A-8.)

In February, 2.6 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force,
essentially unchanged from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.)
These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)

Among the marginally attached, there were 1.0 million discouraged workers in
February, about the same as a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.)
Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.6 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in February had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities. (See table A-16.)”

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

There is nothing in the above report that accounts for a 0.2% increase in  the labor force participation.

On February Citizen Wells presented an article on unemployment facts and used the graph from BarackObama.com

http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/obama-jobs-lies-truth-team-facts-real-unemployment-picture-obama-vs-reagan-jobs-created-not-lost-touted/

I received an email recently from the Truth Team. I was pleased to see that they presented the same graph revealing the worsening employment situation since December 2007.

“Today we received some good news: Last month, American businesses added another 233,000 jobs. That means that after inheriting an economy that was shedding more than 750,000 jobs a month when the President took office, we’ve now had two straight years of job growth. While it’s certainly encouraging, we all know there’s much more that needs to be done.

If you haven’t seen it, check out this jobs chart, spread the good news, and encourage friends to stand with the President as he continues to fight for jobs:”

I am certain that the Truth Team will want the following important omission rectified:

The Democrats took control of congress in 2007. That is when the job situation began worsening.

Truth Team, no thanks necessary.

I just want to make certain that the candidates quote the correct information.

Also, I believe that CNN deserves at least 4 Orwells for their Orwellian presentation of Obama’s performance.