Great News About Jobs! Also, Terrible News About Jobs!
As you may have heard, the government released numbers indicating that the unemployment rate dropped to 9.7% in January. Hooray!
You may also have heard that the country lost 20,000 more jobs. Um, boo?
Your natural reaction (as was mine) might be: how does that happen? How do we lose jobs, but still have reduced unemployment? It’s not that swine flu, is it?
Nope. As explained in this great blog post at NPR, the data come from two different surveys: one of employers (which gave us the 9.7% figure) and another of households (which showed the drop). The differences between these two surveys are more fully fleshed out by a piece at FoxNews.com, which explains that while the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ employers poll covers more people, the survey of households is statistically significant, covering over 100,000 homes.
The truth, of course, lies somewhere beyond these approximations. December’s employment figures, for example, were recently revised downward from an estimated 85,000 jobs lost to a whopping 150,000.
In other words, take a look at the numbers released today – but be prepared to revisit them in a month or two.
Cross-posted from Jspot.org.
Sign up for Mediaite's daily newsletter.
-
disgusted
-
The Media’s Shameful, Inexcusable Distortion Of The Supreme Court’s Citizens United Decision
-
Bill O’Reilly Compares ‘Witch Hunt’ To Fire Ellen DeGeneres From JC Penney Ads To McCarthyism
-
Fox Business Network Drops Bolling, Napolitano Shows In Primetime Shuffle
-
Ellen DeGeneres Thanks Bill O’Reilly For Defending Her
-
Ellen DeGeneres Fires Back At One Million Moms, Mocks Them For Only Having 40,000 Fans On Their Facebook Page
-
The Media’s Shameful, Inexcusable Distortion Of The Supreme Court’s Citizens United Decision »248
-
Ellen DeGeneres Fires Back At One Million Moms, Mocks Them For Only Having 40,000 Fans On Their Facebook Page »236
-
At CPAC: Conservative Columnist Cal Thomas Says Rachel Maddow Is ‘Best Argument’ For Contraception »196
-
Keith Olbermann Returns Amid Reports He’s Hanging By A Thread »162
-
Debbie Wasserman Schultz Defends Obama SuperPAC Stance: ‘The Rules As They Exist Now Are The Rules We Will Play By’ »155
Check out stories and listings from TVGuide.com
-
•
Madonna on M.I.A.'s Super Bowl Middle Finger Gesture: "I Wasn't Happy About It"
-
•
A Gifted Man Boss: We're Very Hopeful About Coming Back
-
•
First Look: Being Human's Aidan Can't Get Bishop Out of His Mind
-
•
Kevin Smith Invades Reality TV With Comic Book Men
-
•
The Biz: NBC's Luke Russert Does Time on Dateline
Job hunting?
Use our proprietary jobs tool to access the largest pool of jobs aggregated from around the country.
President Obama Was The Only Candidate Who Could Afford To Denounce Super PACs, Yet He Won’t
More Online/Print:
RSS