The Delusions of Pelosi

Yesterday Speaker Pelosi posted “A Welcome Step in the Right Direction” on her blog yesterday. She talked about the latest unemployment report and how 20,000 jobs were lost but the unemployment rate went down from 10% to 9.7%.

Yes, I know, mathematically you can’t have unemployment rise yet the unemployment rate drop but discussing the Left’s New Fuzzy Math is for another time.

Pelosi decides to have one of her hacks put up a chart in which it compares job loss under Bush vs under Obama:

Pelosi, her hacks, progressives, liberals, the left, what ever they call themselves today, want everyone to believe that under the Democrats, things get magically better. What they’re showing here is the number of jobs lost each month.

They want you to know that under Obama the number of jobs lost is getting smaller. Well I guess we don’t need a 2nd stimulus, I mean a jobs bill right? We haven’t even spent half the money of the 1st stimulus and everything is looking fine, right Pelosi?

In reality, what they’re actually doing is playing the tired & worn out game of “HEY LOOK OVER THERE!!!”. They don’t want you to realize that they have a $6.3 Trillion dollar off the budget scam going on. Instead, Pelosi and the Left reveal their Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Hey Madam Speaker, guess what? You and the Democrats have been in control of Congress since January of 2007. If you didn’t know it Pelosi, the Congress writes and passes the laws.

So with that in mind, I put together a chart using the same data source as you did Nancy.

Well, well, well, Madam Speaker – Under the Democrats, America has lost jobs every single month for the last 3 years.

But let’s not stop there Pelosi. Let’s just show everyone how delusional you and the Left really are via the last sentence in your post:

Congress will continue to act to build a new foundation for long-term prosperity.

Nancy, take thyself to an insane asylum immediately. While you’re at it take Obama, Reid, Emmanuel, and the rest of the Left with you.

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This entry was posted by Fleckman on February 6, 2010 at 5:20 pm, and is filled under Politics. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

Victor

Pete, I don't know what tables in the BLS reports you're looking at, but in Oct. 2009, the employment level was 129,633. In Nov. 2009, the employment level was 129,697. (both figures are in thousands, using the "as revised" columns).

That's a 64,000 increase. Your chart's showing a 14,000 decrease.

source: Employment Situation Summary - January 2010, Table A: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit...

Peter Fleckenstein

I'm looking directly at the unemployment data released by the BLS. You are looking at the employment data.

That's the distraction that Pelosi and the Left want you to see. They don't want you to look at the unemployment data because when you do then their whole graph falls apart. Hence my graph of unemployment.

Now you can go and access the same data that I did at BLS and see for yourself http://www.bls.gov/data/#unemployment

You see Pelosi's graph makes it look like there was a net jobs increase. There wasn't.

Like I said in the post - Under the Democrats, America has lost jobs every single month for the last 3 years.

Victor

I'm not sure which of the CPS tables you're looking at, but I think it might be the "Unemployment Level - Civilian Labor Force - LNS13000000"

Let's look at a few of those numbers from that table.

Here's the unemployment level for the last four months:

Oct. 09: 15,612
Nov. 09: 15,340
Dec. 09: 15,267
Jan. 10: 14,837

Notice how those numbers are decreasing? That is completely consistent with the Pelosi graph: the unemployment level is decreasing.

Look at the CPS table again: if you start at the beginning, every single month going back to January 1948 shows a number of unemployed people. That makes sense: we're never at 100% employment. In fact, "full employment" is usually defined as around a 4.5% unemployment rate:

http://www.colorado.edu/economics/courses/econ2...

If you're using the CPS unemployment level table to argue that "America has lost jobs every single month for the last 3 years," you're using the wrong table. That's not what the table shows: it shows that America has always had unemployed people.

Whether you choose to use the unemployment level chart, or the employment level chart, the important statistic is how the number changes over time. Right now, there are less unemployed people. The unemployment rate is still too high, but the numbers are starting to show improvement.

As far as the unemployment rate, BLS explains how they derive the numbers here: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm

Peter Fleckenstein

I'm using table LNU03000000. I'm talking about the total number of unemployed. We have a net job loss. No President has had a net job loss since Herbert Hoover. That is until Obama.

There's also additional items to take into account as well:

Unemployment Rate Falls To 9.7%, But 20,000 Jobs Were Lost?

You can keep on going to Pelosi's graph & numbers but until you can disprove my numbers and my graph then I think we're done here and my statement remains factual and true:

"Under the Democrats, America has lost jobs every single month for the last 3 years"

Victor

Three points:

1. LNS13000000 is the unemployment level. When you look at LNU, you see the unadjusted numbers instead of the seasonally adjusted figures. Quoting from the BLS: "As a general rule, the monthly employment and unemployment numbers reported in the news are seasonally adjusted data. Seasonally adjusted data are useful when comparing several months of data."

2. Here's LNU since 1948:

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputSer...

Every time you see the chart move up, that's a net job loss. There are about 10 different instances of the chart moving up.

3. Even the piece in The Atlantic that you've linked to uses the Pelosi chart: it's Chart 2 in the article.

The Delusions of Pelosi

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