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May 24, 2013
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Wires Trumpet Unemployment Claims As Tying '4-Year Low'; Historical Chances of Being Wrong After Revision Are 98%

By Tom Blumer | March 15, 2012 | 13:18

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The exercise of watching the press report on the current week's unemployment claims figure as if it's etched in stone and assessing it as if it's the last word -- only to see the figure get upwardly revised the next week virtually without media comment -- is getting extraordinarily tedious and predictable (but of course watching what they do remains necessary). 

At the Associated Press, Bloomberg, and Reuters, this week's version of the shell game has a relatively unique twist. The three wire services respectively and all without qualification say that today's seasonally adjusted figure of 351,000 from the Department of Labor "matches a four-year low," "the lowest level in four years," and "back to a four-year low." As seen in the graphic which follows, based on the history of the past year, there's a 98% chance they will be wrong after subsequent revisions, almost all of which have occurred during the very next reported week:


Unemployment ClaimsRevs53wksEnded031012

In the past 53 reported weeks, the first reported figure for initial claims has been upwardly revised 52 times (i.e., 98.1% of the time; the only exception is highlighted), and by an average of about 3,800 claims. An average of over 3,600 of those write-ups has occurred the very next week.

But Christopher Rugaber at the AP, Alex Kowalski at Bloomberg, and a pair of reporters at Reuters (Lucia Mutikani and Leah Schnurr) all took advantage of their chance to cheerlead while they had it without telling readers what, based on the previous year's history, is likely to happen next week.

Of the three, only Bloomberg mentioned that last week's claims number was revised upward from 362,000 to 365,000.

Just another day in misleading, smiley-faced business reporting.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.


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Comments

Saw an opening paragraph from the AP

Submitted by bkeyser on Thu, 03/15/2012 - 2:17pm.

that said (paraphrasing) 'Unemployment claims drop 14,000 from an upwardly revised last week figure of 365,000.'

Look, I'm glad people aren't filing for unemployment as frequently as they have been for the last three years, but when the numbers are manipulated to the degree they have been, nothing on first report matters. Nothing. I've heard too many time that the BLS is non-partisan, but the truth is, there's no such thing in today's environment. No one collecting a government check is beyond the reach of this White House -to wit my Marine brothers ordered to disarm in front of Leon Pannetta. Everything is political, especially for this POTUS in his re-election year.

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98% Certainty they'll revise the figure

Submitted by Blonde on Thu, 03/15/2012 - 2:36pm.

I'd say it was 100%. But hey, that's just me.

Truly, it is pathetic that even "business reporting" is so biased. Nothing is sacred these days.

Handy Reference Guide to Obama's Gaffes and Goofs ~ Currently Numbering 200 (and Counting)

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No Wonder AP trumpets the fresh unemployment numbers

Submitted by needle on Thu, 03/15/2012 - 3:51pm.

The fresh unemployment numbers are as reliably biased as the AP itself, they are sort of like fraternal twins both with serious birth defects.

Really! The real story is how the fresh unemployment numbers are so consistently underestimated, but one has to come to NB to learn about that.

- Looking forward to the self-annihilation of the Manipulated Stories Machine.

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Stop Censoring The Gosnell Trial!

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