At the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web today, Jim Taranto noted that it took the Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa until the 15th paragraph of her expanded dispatch on today's Employment Situation Report to find something mildly positive to write.
Aversa, who has been one of the wire service's chief silver lining make-up artists during the Obama presidency's disastrous economic stewardship offered up this contention:
Even with higher pace of job cuts in June, the report indicates that the worst of the layoffs have passed.
The charts from Uncle Sam's Bureau of Labor Statistics that follow show that the evidence for her claim is scant to non-existent.
First, let's look at the most recent seasonally adjusted and not seasonally adjusted job growth/loss figures:
The red box on the left in the NOT seasonally adjusted data shows that the situation got decidedly worse in June. From February through May, the differences in year-over-year monthly job gains and losses on the ground before seasonal adjustment narrowed in by about 60% from -680,000 to -264,000. But June's -371,000 difference went the wrong way, causing the seasonally adjusted number (the result of smoothing results to account for seasonal variations) to move sharply upward.
How this "indicates that the worst of the layoffs have passed," as Aversa claims, is beyond me.
How bad was June? On the ground (not seasonally adjusted), the monthly job loss of 110,000 is the worst June performance listed in 71 years of monthly data BLS has available on the web (1939-2009). Though it is subject to revisions in the next two months, it doesn't seem likely that it will change by much in a positive direction when those revisions arrive.
Here, for the record, is the full collection of monthly changes since 1939 (it appears that monthly recordkeeping might not have begun until February 1939):
Again, how this "indicates that the worst of the layoffs have passed," as Aversa claims, is beyond me.
One of these days, someone at AP will dig into the data and produce a report on the monthly employment situation worthy of what is supposed to be "The Essential Global News Network." One of these days ....
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters
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Pure spin for the O. You
July 2, 2009 - 16:30 ET by bigtimerPure spin for the O.
You can be sure this would have been reported differently if Bush was still Prez.
Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea. ~Andrew Breitbart
Tomorrow
July 2, 2009 - 16:44 ET by ParagrouperTomorrow, tomorrow, the economy will turn tomorrow. Tomorrow's just a day awaaaaay!
Big smiles everbody, your government loves 'ya!
BO
(Bo don't know Jack)
"If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn't thinking." - General George Patton Jr
the goal of osama bin obama
July 2, 2009 - 17:14 ET by RD Kingis to have us at nationwide 30 to 50% unemployment. If you dont get on board right now to Honduras him that is what you have coming.
Silly, that's because it
July 2, 2009 - 18:53 ET by gopsteveSilly, that's because it was a Dem prez, not a GOP prez...C'mon get with it!
Of course the worst of the
July 2, 2009 - 22:47 ET by nadadhimmiOf course the worst of the layoffs have passed you MORON. There are NO MORE JOBS LEFT FROM WHICH TO BE LAID OFF. bushbushbushbushbushbush, even 3 yrs from now, it will still be all bushs fault. Dear Leader can never be wrong you know. Obama WANTS to destroy the economy so he can replace it with communism.
On purpose
July 3, 2009 - 11:11 ET by Blogger Guy00001The media knowingly and willingly suppress information that does not help their favorite candidate since Lenin.
They could have told the public that unemployment for MEN is up to 10% and for woman about 8%, but they deliberately chose not to.
They were really happy when Michael Jackson died, because that became their obsession.
jessieH
July 3, 2009 - 12:06 ET by jessieHjessieH
They (the govt.) call it a resession. Fact is, it's a depression. When only the govt. has a job, it's a depression. When the people have jobs, it's called getting rid of the buffoons in washington. California is broke, yet the speaker of the house is from there. Scary stuff.