By Jove, they’ve done it again, Magoo.
While stumbling around blind the Labor Department has found a way to report that new jobless claims fell by 1,000. Today’s press release reports initial claims were 367,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s “revised” figure of 368,000.
Last week the agency told us new claims were 365,000. So during the past week they revised that number up 3,000 to 368,000 so this week they could say the new claims fell by 1,000 instead of increased by 2,000.
Remember that Washington Times editorial I mentioned this past week? It explained how the Labor Department is cooking the books:
“The Obama administration is managing perceptions by revising the weekly numbers upward after the fact. Every week for at least the last eight weeks, the initial jobless number has been raised after it was released, sometimes significantly. So while the combined initial figures over that period show a 13,000 new jobless decline, this is only because 49,000 jobless were not included in the initial reports.”
Make that nine weeks.
But don’t tell the folks at the Los Angeles Times. They’ve not figured out the trick.
The paper reports this morning:
“WASHINGTON — The labor market is looking a little better than last week’s disappointing jobs report for April.
“The government said Thursday that new claims for unemployment benefits edged lower last week to a seasonally adjusted 367,000 — down 1,000 from the prior week. That’s a second straight week of declining claims, suggesting that the abrupt and worrisome increase in jobless filings in the first three weeks of April was an aberration.”
Good news for Obama right?
By the way, the numbers that all the news media are reporting are the “seasonally adjusted number.” Scroll down to the unadjusted figures and we learn that actual initial claims, unadjusted, totaled 338,418, an increase of 4,942 from the previous week.
Not so good news for Obama. But don’t expect to read that in the news media.

We will see whan the next monthly report comes out again. I think the public is not that blind the feeling is the woll is being thrown at us but in a bunch of cases it is missing the intended target. I just hope enough of us are seeing through this mess.
woll??? I meant wool
The something for nothing crowd, aka, Obama fans, don’t give a rat’s butt, they just want more free stuff paid for by SUCKERS like me.
Ignorance is bliss, Bruce.
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Hope you don’t mind I snagged a few of your words to throw at Sebelius.
It’s all a conspiracy, I say, a great big conspiracy.
Not a conspiracy, just a Ship of Fools who are more interested in The Voice than the truth…
Conspiracy? Then why every week does the media duly report the numbers go down where its is actually an increase? Its not well hidden the info is available. If not an attempt to misdirect, then what is it?
The left does not watch the news! Only MSNBC.
I also noticed this. More disturbing though is FOX News! After this sick jobs report, FOX News announced that there was “good news” for the Administration. It blandly said that new jobless claims had fallen, not giving the amount or circumstance.
FOX has gone into the tank!
No, Petey, it is a little ruse, aided and abetted by a lazy medai.
So Fox is in the conspiracy!
My goodness, if they can get to Ailes ….
No, Petey, they are just lazy, too.
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Tom is correct, lazy media.
But this WH is sure not jumping through any hoops to clear it either…
Nyp going for the humor on this is cool but only indicates he’s happy about the administration enjoying the lazy media.
[...] only problem is that last week the agency said the number of new claims was 367,000, but adjusted that up during the week so [...]