Games BLS plays: Birth/Death adjustments for 2009

[c1ue]

From BLS.gov

	previously	As	previously	As	Difference
	published	revised	published	revised
2009
January........|	134,333	133,549	-741	-779	-38
February.......|	133,652	132,823	-681	-726	-45
March..........|	133,000	132,070	-652	-753	-101
April..........|	132,481	131,488	-519	-582	-63
May............|	132,178	131,141	-303	-347	-44
June...........|	131,715	130,637	-463	-504	-41
July...........|	131,411	130,293	-304	-344	-40
August.........|	131,257	130,082	-154	-211	-57
September......|	131,118	129,857	-139	-225	-86
October........|	130,991	129,633	-127	-224	-97
November.......|	130,995	129,697	4	64	60
December (p)...|	130,910	129,547	-85	-150	-65
		4,002			-552
		3.00%			-0.43%

So, the good news: Birth/Death revisions only 552K down. Considerable improvement from the previous 2 years.

The bad news: labor force shrank 3%

So the 0.43% unemployment rate impact of the revision is more than offset by the denominator decrease - specifically: 0.9957/0.97 = 2% better employment.

See how statistics can be fun!

[DRumsfeld2000]

Re: Games BLS plays: Birth/Death adjustments for 2009

This from Zerohedge:-

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/nfp...d-u6-surge-rec

I do not know about anyone else but the figures coming out of the BLS are becoming more and more pointless to me. They do not seem to measure the true situation and the stats are used more for political football purposes than as a true economic indicator. Maybe I am just becoming more cynical!

[MulaMan]

If employment = 40hrs per week with full benefits. Commissioned sales people only included if they are pulling down significant consistant commisions throughout 2009 similar to a f/t employee.

Does anyone know the actual unemployment rate?

I would bet the unemployment rate is between 30%-40%

Now if you include only people that have employee pension plans providing a secure retirement, as compared apples to apples with the 1950s say, then the unemployment rate is around 80%.

:eek: