Unemployment Rate Slumps to 4-Year Low (4.9%)

[Brightmore]

Unemployment Rate Slumps to 4-Year Low
Associated Press
Jeannine Aversa
September 2, 2005

The nation's unemployment rate dipped to a four-year low of 4.9 percent in August as companies added 169,000 jobs, a sign that the labor market continued to gain traction before Hurricane Katrina struck.

The latest snapshot of the United States' jobs climate, released by the Labor Department on Friday, buttressed observations by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and his colleagues that the hiring situation was gradually improving _ a bit of good news for workers as they headed into the Labor Day weekend.

But the future of the nation's employment picture is murky -- clouded by fallout from the devastating hurricane.

Friday's figures don't reflect the impact of Katrina, which slammed into New Orleans and a swath of Gulf Coast communities, because the employment information was collected before the storm hit.

The 4.9 percent unemployment rate reported for August was down a notch from July's 5 percent rate and was the lowest since August 2001.

Full story

[Jacobin]

1. Ha. Wait till the Katrina numbers come out

[Javaman]

6. Won't change because the unemployment office is gone.

Where will these people go to apply???

[Tempest]

2. It means more people have stopped looking for work

And more people have dropped off of unemployment roles.

The number of jobs being created isn't keeping up with new workers entering the market.

[Birthmark]

3. Yeah, right.

Normally, I'd dismember these numbers and put them in perspective. Today, I'm more concerned with the people of the Gulf Coast to worry about some bogus nonsense out of the BLS.

[krkaufman]

4. Ok, now that's an odd headline... saying the rate is "slumping"

It is normally a good thing to have the unemployment rate going down -- leaving out discussion of hidden unemployment, etc, please -- so saying it's slumping gives the wrong impression. The text of the article even goes immediately to "dipping."

Hmmm... That may be the first time I've actually noticed something spun AWAY from a pro-Bush viewpoint.

[daleo]

20. This way it will seem like a good thing when it goes up after Katrina

See how logical that is?

[bluestateguy]

5. It will go up half a percentage point next month

and we'll be in a full blown recession in a few more months.

[Conservativesux]

7. Oh goody. !! More jobs at Walmart and Mickey D's !!! Not!

[laylah]

8. What is so bogus

about those figures is that they don't reflect the one's who have run out of benefits!

Welcome to DU, btw :toast:

Jenn

[davekriss]

17. Urban myths die hard -- no, no, no

The unemployment rate has nothing to do with unemployment insurance. It is based on a household survey. If you're polled, unemployed, and say you've looked for work in that last 4 weeks, you're counted as unemployed; if you say, naw, not looking, nothing out there, then you are not counted, you are assumed to have voluntarilly dropped out of the labor force.

At just 169K jobs gained, the falling unemployment rate means more are falling "voluntarily" out of the labor force, just giving up, which is more bleak than the UR ticking up (at least then people are still looking).

[NNN0LHI]

19. But if they lose their job and unemployment and can't afford a phone...

...they don't get to participate in any surveys. Do they? So how accurate is this phone survey?

Don

[davekriss]

21. Who says it's accurate?

The Orwellian Ministry of Truth (aka BLS) cooks the books with the CES Birth-Death fudge factoring anyway. I'd trust these numbers about as much as I'd trust a Floridian or Ohio vote count in a presidential election!

On edit, yeah, if you can't afford a phone you can't be polled, you become a non-entity, a nobody to be concerned about. While the household survey is a poll, not an exhastive census, they should adjust the sampling to account for this circumstantial "drop out", but surely they don't. All fudge will sweeten the picture for the Republinazis; they use erasures of other sorts for bitter info.

[orpupilofnature57]

9. Is this a poll or a stat, though neither is worth a shit , except to liars

[1932]

10. Wages down, poverty up, benefits disappearing. Something's wrong.

[VegasWolf]

11. The media lies, they should call a spade a spade, unemployment rate

my ass!!! The title should read, the number of people still eligible
for unemployment insurance claims drops to 4.9%. This number has
NOTHING to with the actual number of unemployed people in the US.
Frigging liars.

[ochazuke]

12. I've noticed a STRANGE thing in the numbers

every month that the rate drops is a month where the number of jobs created is anemic or even negative.

conversely, every month where the unemployment rate rises is accompanied by a relatively large jobs-created number.

fishy, ain't it?

[slackmaster]

13. The plankton is dying

Soylent Green is people.

[tom_paine]

14. The full and final Sovietization of Imperial Amerika

Bushevik "reports" are now vering off into total and complete unreality.

They are as trustworthy as the pronouncements of any other Totalitarian Nation have EVER been.

It took them awhile to fully eradicate any truthfulness in branches that had at least been trying to deliver accurate pictures for 4 decades.

Now, all we are left with is the lies of the Soviets, the Nazis, or the Bushies. There really isn't much difference except what particular lies they deluge us with.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

15. In other news...

Crappy jobs at an all-time high.

[Chicago1]

16. These numbers are WAY WAY WAY OOOFFFFF

These numbers are NO WHERE NEAR CLOSE to being accurate.


ALOT of people who are no longer eligible for work ARE NOT being counted in that number.

IMPEACH BUSH NOW!!!!

[Selatius]

18. DOUBLE that unemployment number

The BLS intentionally does not count those unemployed who are frustrated who have quit seeking work but are able to still work. They drop off the rolls, so you have a number lower than reality.

[daa]

22. Look at the statistics on the BLS site

and you will see that they made up 132,000 of the 169,000 jobs out of thin air.

[davekriss]

23. Are you saying the CES Birth-Date numbers are 132k?

So the number of jobs they can extrapolate from the household survey was only 37,000? That sounds more realistic!

[niallmac]

24. Unemployment figures are BS and an Insult to we the people.

Explain they are BS before you state them MSM or don't use them at all. When intelligent people spew BS knowingly to decieve is there any greater sin you can commit upon your fellow man?...other than putting a retard in charge of the once most powerful country on the planet?