Bloodthirsty Liberal

What are the unemployed: racist?

The number of newly laid-off workers filing initial claims for jobless benefits rose unexpectedly last week, evidence that layoffs are continuing and jobs remain scarce.

The rise is the fourth in the past five weeks. Most economists hoped that claims would resume a downward trend that was evident in the fall and early winter.

The Labor Department said Thursday that new claims for unemployment insurance rose by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 480,000. Wall Street economists had expected a drop to 460,000, according to Thomson Reuters.

The four-week average, which smooths fluctuations, rose for the third straight week to 468,750.

The figure is the highest in the past two months.

Serious betters, I hear, say never to bet against a streak. In that case, I’m betting against the experts and putting all my available cash ($46.21) on unemployment remaining “unexpectedly” high.

The number of people continuing to claim benefits was unchanged at 4.6 million. That data lags initial claims by a week.

But the so-called continuing claims do not include millions of people who have used up the regular 26 weeks of benefits typically provided by states, and are receiving extended benefits for up to 73 additional weeks, paid for by the federal government.

More than 5.8 million people were receiving extended benefits in the week ended Jan. 16, the latest data available, up from about 5.6 million the previous week.

I’m willing to concede that the economy grew last quarter, if not by the gaudy 5.7% initially claimed. But when the entire population of Maryland has been out of work for so long that they’ve come to think of their relief check as a paycheck, there is very little reason for rejoicing, or even optimism.

Uh-Oh, the population of San Francisco just lost its job:

The U.S. may lose 824,000 jobs when the government releases its annual revision to employment data on Feb. 5, showing the labor market was in worse shape during the recession than known at the time.

Not to mention the millions who’ve given up looking for work entirely.

To be fair, the adjustment falls mainly in the Bush administration. But if Bush can take the hit for stuff happening a year after he left office, Obama can surely be held responsible for events before he was sworn in. Business markets anticipate conditions, and his election was see as likely if not certain by October at the latest. No self-respecting capitalist would dare invest a penny without knowing exactly how raving a socialist this raving socialist would be.

Those who watched the STFU—sorry, SOTU—noted that Congress leapt to its feet 86 times last night.

You would have found the rest of America on its feet, too, but that’s because they were standing in a breadline:

The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance fell last week, the government said Thursday.

There were 470,000 initial job claims filed in the week ended Jan. 23, down 8,000 from a revised 478,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in a weekly report.

A consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected new claims to fall to 450,000.

…

“It was good news to see it move lower,” said John Lonski, a chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “Nonetheless, the 4-week moving average did rise for a second consecutive week and this warns of a possible softening of the labor market.”

…

The 4-week moving average for ongoing claims fell by 94,250 to 4,669,250 from the previous week’s revised 4,763,500.

But the drop may just mean that more filers are dropping off those rolls into extended benefits.

Continuing claims reflect people filing each week after their initial claim until the end of their standard benefits, which usually last 26 weeks. The figures do not include those people who have moved to state or federal extensions, or people whose benefits have expired.

…

“The latest news on jobless claims offers no news for celebration,” said Lonski. “They are down from the previous week, yet this metric of labor market conditions leaves a lot to be desired.”

Until the 4-week moving average falls below 400,000, job growth will not be sustained, said Lonski.

And in a classic example of making chicken salad out of chicken [bleep]:

“January’s payroll will get a special boost from the fact that the seasonally adjusted loss of jobs in retailers will be less than otherwise, mostly because retailers didn’t hire as many people as they normally would,” he said.

Since no one’s hiring, there’s no one left to lay off. I guess that’s another green shoot of recovery I used to hear so much about.

Is it:

a) thousands and thousands

b) one-and-a-half million

c) two million?

Trick question! The correct answer is: d) all of the above!

White House advisers appearing on the Sunday talk shows gave three different estimates of how many jobs could be credited to President Obama’s Recovery Act.

The discrepancy was pointed out by a Republican official in an email to reporters noting that “Three presidential advisers on three different programs [gave] three different descriptions of the trillion-dollar stimulus bill.”

Valerie Jarrett had the most conservative count, saying “the Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs,” while David Axelrod gave the bill the most credit, saying it has “created more than – or saved more than 2 million jobs.” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs came in between them, saying the plan had “saved or created 1.5 million jobs.”

I’m with AxelRose on this one. Why, in the Guam 99th congressional district alone, they saved hundred of jobs—and it doesn’t even exist!

Just how big is the stimulus package? Well for one, it has doubled the size of the House of Representatives, according to recovery.gov, which says that funds were distributed to 440 congressional districts that do not exist.

According to data retrieved from recovery.gov, nearly $6.4 billion was used to “create or save” just under 30,000 jobs in these phantom congressional districts–almost $225,000 per job. The web site operates on an $84 million budget and is tasked with monitoring the distribution of the $787 billion stimulus package passed by Congress–which, for the record, counts 435 members–in early 2009.

The site’s monitors, however, are not too savvy about America’s political or geographic landscape. More than $2 million was given to the 99th District of North Dakota, a state which has only one congressional district. In order to qualify for 99 districts, North Dakota would have to have a population of about 60 million people, almost 24 million more people than California.

The stimulus revived 8 recently retired congressional districts. Pennsylvania’s 21st District has received just under $2 million in funds. Mississippi’s 5th District and Oklahoma’s 6th received $1 million from the legislation, respectively. All three were eliminated by the 2000 census.

Many other recipients carried the banner for congressional districts that have been defunct for decades. South Carolina’s 7th took the cake, garnering more than $27 million in stimulus funds, despite being eliminated in 1930. And Virginia’s 12th District may have been written off at the start of the Civil War, but it must carry some sentimental value in Old Dominion–it received more than $2 million, according to recovery.gov.

Imagine how many jobs were saved in the 435 districts that do exist! Two million is conservative. At this rate, we’ll all have to work two jobs just to keep up with their numbers.

This story about bogus districts and phantom jobs is two months old, btw. We covered it, as did pretty much everyone else. Do they really think we forgot? Do they think we’re stupid? (Don’t answer that.) Do you believe anything that comes out of their mouths? (You don’t have to answer that.)

“Unexpected” strikes again!

A surprising jump in first-time claims for unemployment aid sent a painful reminder Thursday that jobs remain scarce six months into the economic recovery.

The surge in last week’s claims deflated hopes among some analysts that the economy would produce a net gain in jobs in January and help fuel the recovery.

…

“The trend in the data is still discouraging,” Diane Swonk, chief economist for Mesirow Financial, wrote in a note to clients. “Hopes for a positive employment number in January … are rapidly dimming.”

The disappointing jobless claims report contributed to a gloom on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 182 points by late morning, or 1.7 percent, and broader indexes also fell.

…

The Labor Department report said the number of people continuing to claim regular benefits dropped slightly to just under 4.6 million. The continuing claims data lags behind initial claims by a week.

But the so-called continuing claims do not include millions of people who have used up the regular 26 weeks of benefits customarily provided by states and are now receiving extended benefits for up to 73 additional weeks, paid for by the federal government.

More than 5.9 million people received extended benefits in the week that ended Jan. 2, the latest period for which data are available. That’s an increase of more than 600,000 from the previous week. The data for emergency benefits lags behind initial claims by two weeks.

The rising number of people claiming extended unemployment insurance indicates that even as layoffs are declining, hiring hasn’t picked up. That leaves people out of work for longer periods.

In other words, we are mired in an Ob-cession (I think that’s my coiinage).

We don’t need to spend a of time on this, but it’s worth a mention:

Ten months into President Barack Obama’s first economic stimulus plan, a surge in spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, an Associated Press analysis has found.

Spend a lot or spend nothing at all, it didn’t matter, the AP analysis showed: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless of how much stimulus money Washington poured out for transportation, raising questions about Obama’s argument that more road money would address an “urgent need to accelerate job growth.”

So do we get our money back? I mean he guar-an-teed recovery, didn’t he? Lead pipe cinch?

Obama wants a second stimulus bill from Congress that relies in part on more road and bridge spending, projects the president said are “at the heart of our effort to accelerate job growth.”

Uh-uh-uh, Mr. President. Fool me fourteen times, shame on the both of us.

PS: Ed Morrissey:

The road-construction stimulus has a lot in common with Cash for Clunkers and the homebuying credit. All are temporary and limited attempts to get a one-time spike. It’s almost like a checklist rather than a strategy for creating long-term growth, a way to look busy without doing much of anything at all. Obama is stealing roadwork from the next few years and front-loading it into 2010. Not only will that not create much employment now, it will create a depression in the road-construction industry for the next several years.

It’s time for this administration to admit that it has no idea what it’s doing. Obama needs to fire his economic advisers and start listening to people who understand how to create long-term growth rather than government-managed misery.

Does anyone—anyone—have any faith that Obama would do—could do—anything of the sort? It ignores Rush Limbaugh’s belief (more credible every day) that this is all intentional. The more uncertainty and misery he creates, the more a scared populace turns to the government for help. Gasoline on a fire, sure, but when a “light-skinned” black man with no “Negro dialect” offers to fill ‘er up, people will be reluctant to decline.

President Obama has a tiresome habit of describing situations not to his liking as “unacceptable”. I wish he’d feel that way about unemployment:

Nonfarm payroll employment edged down (-85,000) in December, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 10.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment fell in construction, manufacturing, and wholesale trade, while temporary help services and health care added jobs.

In December, both the number of unemployed persons, at 15.3 million, and the unemployment rate, at 10.0 percent, were unchanged. At the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons was 7.7 million, and the unemployment rate was 5.0 percent. …

We’ve been hearing about the “unexpectedly” rosy layoff news for weeks now—only 450,000 - 500,000 losses a week; it’s getting better; won’t be long before we see job growth.

Now, that all may be true—indeed, it will be true, someday—but it doesn’t mean that we’ve done anything to bring it about. And it is “unacceptable” (I was going to say “inexcusable” or “intolerable”, but what the heck) that any person remain unemployed one second longer than required by the economic cycle. Ignorant economic policies aren’t just ignorant, they are immoral. Families losing their homes, kids going hungry—they’re immoral if they are brought about by supercilious government policies that retard economic recovery and activity.

We are surrounded by incompetence.

Credit where it’s due: new unemployment claims fell “unexpectedly” last week:

New unemployment claims have been sliding steadily for months, but fell last week by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 432,000, according to data from the U.S. Labor Department. Wall Street economists had expected claims to rise to 460,000.

Have the actual numbers ever hit the expected numbers? Ever? Why do they bother?

Not to kill your buzz, but:

[C]ontinuing claims do not include millions of people who have used up the regular 26 weeks of benefits typically provided by states and are receiving extended benefits for up to 73 additional weeks, paid for by the federal government.

About 4.8 million people were receiving extended benefits in the week that ended Dec. 12, the latest data available, an increase of 200,000 from the previous week. The rise is partly a result of another extension of benefits by Congress in November.

To summarize, 22,000 fewer people (than expected) filed new unemployment claims—while 200,000 more people (actually counted) slipped into long term unemployment benefits.

But who am I to micturate on “good” economic news?

How’s this for journalistic contortionism?

A report on unemployment claims and a forecast of U.S. economic activity pointed Thursday to an economy mending slowly, without the job growth needed to fuel a vigorous recovery.

The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week. But the four-week average for jobless claims, which smooths out fluctuations, fell. That was an encouraging sign that the labor market is gradually improving.

So there are more newly unemployed people than we expected—and that’s good news?

The fine print is no more encouraging:

The government said that the number of people continuing to receive regular benefits rose by 5,000 to 5.19 million for the week ending Dec. 5. That figure does not include millions of people who have used up the regular 26 weeks of benefits typically provided by the state and are now receiving extended benefits for up to 73 additional weeks, paid for by the federal government.

The people receiving extended benefits jumped to 4.73 million for the week ending Nov. 28, an increase of 143,759 from the previous week. That big rise reflected the fact that a total of 17 states are now processing claims for the extension of benefits that Congress approved last month.

We’re paying the equivalent of the combined populations of Chicago, IL and Houston, TX to sit on their asses (through no fault of their own), and this article dares to headline itself “Economic reports point to gradual recovery”?

The Dow’s down over 80 points as I write—which is irrelevant, I admit—but based on what evidence do they fold, spindle, and mutilate the facts to come to this conclusion?

President Obama finally delivers on a promise:

Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.

Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.

…

When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.

Yes, but we’re going to spend our way out of this recession. Those federal hacks are buying flat-screen TVs and Ford F-150s like they’re going out of style.

It’s just that they’re the only ones:

The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance jumped last week, the government said Thursday, with a figure that was above analysts’ expectations.

There were 474,000 initial job claims filed in the week ended Dec. 5, up 17,000 from the previous week’s unrevised 457,000, the lowest level since September 2008, the Labor Department said in its weekly report.

Are they sure this is an “unexpected” week? I thought sure this was an “expected” week. Who can keep them straight?

[T]he slide may signal that more filers are dropping off those rolls into extended benefits.

Continuing claims reflect people filing each week after their initial claim until the end of their standard benefits, which usually last 26 weeks. The figures do not include those who have moved to state or federal extensions, or people whose benefits have expired.

Head to Washington, people, the gummint’s hiring—and they’re paying good, too!