Pres. Obama's Reality Land Happens On Thursdays

Claims for jobless benefits UNEXPECTEDLY (yeah, as if!) climbed by 6,000 to 386,000 in the week ended June 9 from a revised 380,000 the prior week that was more than first estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Economists projected claims would fall to 375,000, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. Image Credit: Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters

Pres. Obama's Reality Land Happens On Thursdays

With yet another revised release of information on Thursday ... the Thursday AFTER the Friday release of economic indicators found in employment and additional Government assistance, the news is always worse than reported. It is good during this 44th Presidency to never focus on the Friday numbers but to focus always on these Thursday numbers because they are almost always at least 15% more realistic.

Everyone fudges in politics but the Obama Administration has brought this process to an art of habit. Unemployment or other economic information is initially released and then this information is almost always revised by at least 15% or more in an additional negative direction ... in other words the information is WORSE than originally reported.

This excerpted and edited from Fox News -

US unemployment aid applications rise to 386K
Published June 14, 2012 - Associated Press

More Americans sought unemployment aid last week, suggesting hiring remains sluggish.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly unemployment benefit applications rose 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 386,000, an increase from an upwardly revised 380,000 the previous week.

The four-week average, a less volatile measure, rose for the third straight week to 382,000. That's the highest in six weeks.

Weekly applications are a measure of the pace of layoffs. When they drop below 375,000, it typically suggests hiring is strong enough to reduce the unemployment rate.

"The trend in jobless claims suggests ... that the underlying pace of employment growth has softened," said Bricklin Dwyer, an economist at BNP Paribas.

Applications fell steadily during the fall and winter but have since leveled off.

At the same time, hiring has slowed, raising concerns about the pace of the recovery. Employers added an average of only 96,000 jobs per month in the past three months. That's down from an average of 252,000 in the previous three months.

Weaker hiring also pushed up the unemployment rate in May to 8.2 percent, its first rise in nearly a year.
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The total benefit rolls fell to 5.8 million in the week ending May 26, the latest data available. That's a drop of 146,000 from the previous week.
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For now, the economy appears to be sputtering. It expanded 1.9 percent in the first quarter, down from 3 percent in the October-December quarter. Growth isn't expected to improve much in the current April-June quarter.

Consumers remain cautious. Retail sales fell 0.2 percent in May, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, matching April's decline. It was the first back-to-back drop in two years.
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The economy is still struggling three years after the recession officially ended in June 2009. Wages haven't kept up with inflation. State and local governments have continued to shed jobs.

The United States has regained less than 3.8 million [not the 4.4 million claimed by Pres. Obama in a press conference last week], or 43 percent, of the 8.8 million jobs lost during and immediately after the recession.
[Reference Here]

When the information has to do with monthly reporting figures, the true reporting of the figures happens about one-month later ... the same thing happens with quarterly economic indicators. Why can not the Federal Government report more truthful information at the original time the report is due? An adjustment within say, 5% or so can be understood and dismissed but a consistent miss-statement of information that is off by 15% or more is not understandable or should never be dismissed.

In a President Obama world, known here as Carter's Second Term, any report that has the possibility of a regressive or negative trend should never be taken as first reported. In fact, the trust in this 44th Presidency to be honest with the American people has eroded to the point that everything this executive branch and its bureaucracies report can never be relied upon as based in reality ... this only happens in revision.


** Article first published as Pres. Obama's Reality Land Happens On Thursdays on Technorati **