Unemployment

Gallup CEO Blasts Press's Complacency in Covering Unemployment and Underemployment
By Tom Blumer | February 4, 2015 | 3:31 PM EST

Yesterday, in a column at his organization's web site, the head of the nation's leading polling organization called the government's official unemployment rate, currently at 5.6 percent, a "big lie."

Rest assured that if Gallup Inc. Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton had written this column during a Republican or conservative administration, his words would have been picked up by the Associated Press and the New York Times, and would have echoed across the Big Three networks' nightly newscasts. Instead, because relatively good-looking government data is sacrosanct during a Democratic administration, an expansive Google News search at 1:15 p.m. ET on "Gallup unemployment lie" (not in quotes, showing similar items and duplicates) returned only 26 items. Almost all of them are from center-right blogs and outlets. One exception is an item at Fortune.com which accuses Clifton of indulging in a "vast" "conspiracy theory."

Worse Than Seattle’s Super Bowl Call? The Media’s Calls on Government Power Grabs
By Seton Motley | February 2, 2015 | 9:37 AM EST

The Seattle Seahawks yesterday - in a moment of profound foolishness - forsook Beast Mode for Least Mode.  And it cost them the Super Bowl.   But they can take ever so slight solace - the Media has been in Least Mode for decades. 

This has been on prominent display throughout the Barack Obama Administration - and certainly when it comes to the Administration’s many, MANY unilateral power grabs.

First, a bit of a Constitutional primer for a Media that seems to desperately need it.  Congress is the Legislative Branch.  They write laws - which the President then signs.  Said President presides over the Executive Branch.  His many, many, MANY Departments, Agencies, Commissions and Boards are then - and only then - charged with executing the legislation Congress first composed. 

Not News: Only 1.1% of Americans Live in Unemployment Rate-Recovering Counties
By Tom Blumer | January 26, 2015 | 6:11 PM EST

This post follows up on Friday morning's entry (at BizzyBlog; at NewsBusters) showing that "Fewer Than 0.5% of Americans Live in Fully Recovered Counties." This is the kind of news which would be front and center with the nation's establishment press if such a report came out during a Republican or conservative presidential administration. With Team Obama in place, NACo's work has been virtually ignored.

Some commenters at the Friday post raised a potentially valid objection to the criteria used by the National Association of Counties to determine "full recovery." NACo's four bases were returns to pre-recession bests in number of jobs, the unemployment rate, GDP, and home prices. Objectors wanted to completely discount the group's work based on its inclusion of home prices, arguing that pre-bubble home prices were artificially high, and that a failure to return to those levels was not a valid indicator of economic malaise. If all three other metrics were impressive, they would have had a point. But they weren't. This post will look at the unemployment rate metric, because that will be the only one needed to show that they still don't have a point.

Recovery Watch: Homeless Problem in LA Is Growing
By Tom Blumer | January 25, 2015 | 11:55 PM EST

As President Barack Obama and Governor Jerry Brown continue to extol the wonders of the alleged economic recovery of nation and the Golden State, respectively, stories of significant growth in homelessness continue to rain on their parades. The latest example comes on the heels of reports on Seattle's burgeoning problem and the city's apparent willingness to allow officially sanctioned outdoor encampments to serve as a "temporary" (yeah, sure) solution.

In a Saturday item in the Los Angeles Times about the expansion of "homeless camps" outside of what had been known as the LA's "skid row," Times reporter Gale Holland apparently learned not to repeat a revealing disclosure she made in a December Times report covering the situation in San Jose. Her coverage was remarkably vague, failing to provide specifics I believe she could have relayed with little effort, especially given that homelessness and poverty is her assigned beat. Excerpts follow the jump.

AP Spins Today's Glum (For Organized Labor) Union Membership Report
By Tom Blumer | January 23, 2015 | 4:46 PM EST

Someone looking at the annual "Union Members" report released this morning by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics would logically conclude that 2014 was a year organized labor would rather forget.

While average nonagricultural wage and salary employment increased by over 2.32 million from 2013 to 2014, union membership only went up by 48,000, or about 2 percent of the nationwide increase. Additionally, the private sector's 41,000-person pickup in union membership was only 1.6 percent of its total 2.55 million increase. Yes, that means that public-sector union membership increased a bit while public-sector employment declined by 226,000. Of course, no such decidedly negative nuggets made their way into Labor Secretary Tom Perez's press release or Tom Raum's Associated Press report, excerpts of which follow the jump (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

ABC’s Stephanopoulos Finds It Credible Barack Obama Can Be Another Ronald Reagan
By Rich Noyes | January 20, 2015 | 7:34 PM EST

Without laughing, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday’s World News Tonight advanced the White House hope that Barack Obama will be seen as Ronald Reagan was in 1987, as a President who rescued the economy and was rewarded by voters.

Mario Cuomo in 1984: High on Passion, Low on Accuracy
By Tom Blumer | January 2, 2015 | 7:29 AM EST

Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who died on Thursday, is predictably being lionized today by USA Today's Aamer Madhani "as (a) giant in political rhetoric," and by others elsewhere in similarly glowing terms.

Madhani goes on to characterize the three-term Empire State chief executive's 1984 Democratic Convention speech in San Francisco as "what is widely considered one of the finest pieces of political rhetoric in recent memory." That it probably was. But he also calls it "a full-throated rebuttal of President Ronald Reagan, who would go on to a landslide victory over the Democratic nominee Walter Mondale." On that, Madhani is absolutely wrong. It was an attempt at a rebuttal which has since been thoroughly refuted and discredited.

Stop the Presses: Jesse Jackson Said Something Sensible — On Immigration
By Tom Blumer | December 31, 2014 | 5:10 PM EST

Call the Ripley's Believe It or Not people. Have smelling salts available. What follows will surely be one of the more unusual things you've seen or heard this year.

In the midst of his otherwise odious Silicon Valley race-hustling shakedown effort, Jesse Jackson said something that made sense — so much sense that the rest of the press, which usually hangs on every word of his nonsensical pronouncements, has virtually ignored it, and will probably continue to.

Press Barely Notices Obama Administration's Computerized Health Records Fiasco
By Tom Blumer | December 30, 2014 | 11:52 AM EST

The old saying — "To err is human, but to really screw things up, you need a computer" — needs an update. In this case, it's "To err is human, but to wreck an entire industry, you need to have the federal government try to force it to computerize."

I'm referring to the government's attempt to coerce doctors into using its mandated, "clunky, time-sucking" electronic health records system. Somehow, it's barely news, with a story by Politico Magazine's Arthur Allen constituting a rare exception, that over a quarter-million doctors, i.e., half of all who are eligible, face fines next year for "failing to use the systems in the way the government required."

AP, Other Reporting on New York's Fracking Ban Ignores Awful Upstate Economy
By Tom Blumer | December 20, 2014 | 7:49 AM EST

The establishment press is virtually giddy over New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's cowardly, self-serving decision to ban fracking in New York. It's cowardly because Cuomo is publicly pretending that he's only deferring to his environmental and health commissioners, when everyone with an ounce of sense knows that he's getting the recommendations he wanted. It's self-serving because it enhances his political cachet with environmental zealots while disregarding the frightening plight, with the exception of Metro New York City, of the Empire State's seriously decaying economy.

Examples of pathetic press coverage, plus a depressing look at the state's non-New York City job market, follow the jump.

New York Times Foodie Mark Bittman Uncoils String of Leftist Inanities Disguised as Sunday Review Piece
By Clay Waters | December 16, 2014 | 1:38 AM EST

An epic example of fanciful, fatuous liberalism featured in the most recent New York Times Sunday Review, a screed from Times food writer Mark Bittman that tried to tie in every single current event into a neat package labeled Republican Evil: "The police killing unarmed civilians. Horrifying income inequality. Rotting infrastructure and an unsafe "safety net." An inability to respond to climate, public health and environmental threats. A food system that causes disease. An occasionally dysfunctional and even cruel government. A sizable segment of the population excluded from work and subject to near-random incarceration. You get it: This is the United States, which, with the incoming Congress, might actually get worse."

Thin Gruel: AP Hypes How 'Job Market Hits a Turning Point'
By Tom Blumer | December 8, 2014 | 2:41 PM EST

Friday's Employment Situation Summary contained one strong element: In November, the economy added 321,000 seasonally adjusted payroll jobs. That's not insignificant, but that news, especially in the report's full context, certainly didn't justify the level of elation seen in much of the press.

Predictably, the Associated Press found a specious reason to characterize the government's report as signifying a "turning point." Get a load of why: "For the first time since the Great Recession ended 5-1/2 years ago, America's unemployed are now as likely to be hired as to stop looking for a job." In other words, for the first time in 65 months, what people would expect to be a normal situation finally occurred.