Yesterday's Employment Situation Summary from the Bureaus of Labor Statistics told us that reports 111,000 net new jobs were added in January. Additionally, significant upward revisions were made to the previously reported job-increase figures from November (up 42,000 to 196,000 from last month’s revised 154,000) and December (up 39,000 to 206,000 from last month’s originally reported 167,000). So with revisions, there were 192,000 more people working (111+42+39) at the end of January than were thought to be working as of the end of December, and 513,000 more (111+196+206) than three months ago.
It gets better.
In that same Employment Situation Summary released yesterday, the BLS reported on its "Annual Revisions to Establishment Survey Data." Doesn't sound like much, but read the fine print:
In accordance with annual practice, the establishment survey data have been revised to reflect comprehensive universe counts of payroll jobs, or benchmarks. These counts are derived principally from unemployment insurance tax records for March 2006. As a result of the benchmark process, all not seasonally adjusted data series were subject to revision from April 2005 forward, the time period since the last benchmark was established.
The total nonfarm employment level for March 2006 was revised upward by 752,000 (754,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis). The previously published level for December 2006 was revised upward by 981,000 (933,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis).
In other words, BLS "found" well over 900,000 more jobs, most of which (averaging about 63,000 per month) were added between April 2005 and March 2006. This was a time during which the "weak job growth" meme still had life in it. BLS's Annual Revision shows that the meme had no validity during that time.
So how does job growth during the Bush years look after incorporating the Annual Revision? Well, even more "Clintonian" than when I last looked at it a month ago:
As you might expect, the coverage of BLS's retroactively added 900,000-plus jobs has been relatively muted. Finding it requires knowing what you're looking for and getting past misleading headlines.
The LA Times (may require free registration) didn't not have the employment news in its home-page business headlines. Times reporter Molly Hennessy-Fiske got the Annual Revision news into her second paragraph but only after this off-putting headline and sub-headline -- "Employment still strong despite disappointing month; Unemployment rises slightly to 4.6% from 4.5%. Sluggishness in the housing market could keep a lid on economic growth." If I didn't know better, I wouldn't want to read any further.
The New York Times also gave the employment news no home-page visibility. Jeremy Peters' and Eduardo Porter's headline (may require free registration) -- "Slower Job Growth, At Least for Now." The Times did cover the the Annual Revision and asked a question on a lot of minds, including yours truly's, beginning in the article's fifth paragraph (bold is mine):
But employers may be hiring at a faster clip than is immediately apparent. The Labor Department also acknowledged that employers added nearly one million more jobs from March 2005 through last December than it had previously estimated.
Last year, employment growth exceeded earlier estimates by more than 400,000 jobs. The magnitude of the change suggested that the Labor Department might be seriously underestimating the growth in employment.
“The size of the upward revisions was enormous,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief United States economist with MFR. “You put the pieces of the puzzle together, and it sort of tells you that the 111,000 number is not something to focus on.” January’s number will be revised in February and March, and will be subject to an annual adjustment next year.
But if the Times' "expert" said that the January number wasn't something to focus on, why did the article's headline do just that?
Also -- The reporters' stat that 400,000 jobs were retroactively added to 2006 ("last year") is probably technically correct, but I see it as a "clever" way to avoid mentioning the hundreds of thousands of additional jobs retroactively added to 2005, AND to avoid mentioning the 900,000-plus grand total of jobs retroactively added.
The Washington Post's Neil Henderson (may require registration) did not mention the Annual Revision or the 900,000-plus jobs retroactively added at all.
Once again, the Bush jobs machine isn't getting the credit it is due. The BLS needs to take a serious look at why it is taking so long to discover hundreds of thousands of workers.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters
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This is fantastic news! Unfor
February 3, 2007 - 12:49 ET by aeroThis is fantastic news! Unfortunately, even if the MSM reports it properly, most Americans seem still to be operating under the assumption that, though their own financial situations are steadily improving, their neighbors' are not. People think that everybody else is doing badly--I guess because of steady downbeat MSM reporting despite the facts. When someone says the economy sucks, I ask them what part. No matter what they tell me, I'm able to prove to them that they are wrong and the economy is far better than they thought. They're always surprised--it's like a parlor game to me.
I've wondered for a long time how the BLS is accounting for people like me, who have non-traditional work situations. I'm a freelance writer--I'm self-employed and work at home full-time. Am I counted as an unemployed housewife to them? Or am I among the "adjusted" numbers? How do they even know that I'm working? My tax returns? There are more and more people like me every year because there are more and more opportunities to make money by non-traditional means. For example, I imagine that someone making a fortune selling stuff on eBay looks unemployed to the government.
est
February 3, 2007 - 13:37 ET by Tom BlumerWhat you're talking about is a part of the problem. Plus the fact that the Establishment Survey calls known businesses. Businesses that started up recently or are home-based are tougher to find, and not surveyed. Given the trend towards a lot of home-based or smaller businesses, the data-gatherers need to look at how they're doing things and figure out how to do better.
I think this must also accoun
February 3, 2007 - 15:13 ET by aeroI think this must also account for the analysts' complete surprise every year when individual income tax returns are so much higher than they expected. We're all out here raking in the dough, but we're doing it more or less under their radar until April 15th (despite quarterly returns, they don't seem to be able to estimate well what the self-employed are doing). When we dutifully send our money in, it blows the curve, so to speak. I know the amount I pay each year must support an entire family on welfare for the following year--at least it sure seems like it! Everyone should spend a year or more self-employed so that they have to write that check for 42% of their income (or whatever percent one's income tax bracket plus 14% Social Security adds up to). When the anaesthesia of withholding wears off, you become an anti-tax conservative/libertarian incredibly quickly!
It's because the libs run the bureaucracies
February 3, 2007 - 13:42 ET by SportPoliticsIt's because the libs run the bureaucracies, and it doesn't take many of them in a few spots to skew the numbers so Bush hate wins, while not getting themselves in trouble, because there's always " revision" time to get it closer to correct.
I watched the national debt numbers change, online, about 5 times, for the historical past decade.
You know, they have to have all those extra people doing something. So fudging around and guessing and this and that and the other, and then finally they get a second batch of guessing,and change this and that,and blah blah blah.
Works well for the libs, they can overblow employment numbers during dem admins, and underestimate during repubs. Just the opposite for deficits,that disappear under clinton, magically readjusting later, yet the Bush debt is overestimated and when it readjusts lower don't really report much except Bush lied.
huh. what always puzzled me
February 3, 2007 - 14:34 ET by mawendthuh. what always puzzled me was how these numbers are determined. i would have thought that all you need to do is have the IRS check the number of income bringers and compare that number from month to month.
for years it looked to me that when the numbers are developed, its intentionally left fuzzy so that the answer can be manipulated. maw
IRS
February 3, 2007 - 20:32 ET by Tom BlumerThe number of income-bringers is not known by the IRS from month to month. Many years ago it could have been, but employers don't have to report payroll by employee every month.