The Homa Files

This is getting downright silly …

The first line of this morning’s BLS report on weekly jobless claims says:

In the week ending April 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 388,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 389,000.

Note the last couple of words:  “ … from the previous week’s revised figure”.

Hmmm.

Here’s the way CNBC decoded the report:

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 388,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

The prior week’s figure was revised up to 389,000 from the previously reported 386,000.

The four-week moving average for new claims, a closely followed measure of labor market trends, rose 6,250 to 381,750, its highest since the week that ended January 7.

Get it?

Last week, when claims were reported to have gone up, they were understated by 3,000.

Hmm.

Now, last month gets revised upward … and guess what?

This month is lower than last month.

So, Team O has a talking point: jobless claims are down.

They do think we’re stupid …

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Tags: BLS, cooking the books, unemployment

This entry was posted on April 26, 2012 at 8:53 am and is filed under Employment - Jobs, Unemployment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.