The number of unemployed persons (13.7 million) and the unemployment rate (8.9 percent) changed little in February. The labor force was about unchanged over the month. The jobless rate was down by 0.9 percentage point since November 2010.
Now we will briefly look at the data:
First the raw data of employed non-farm seasonally adjusted. It has continued to rise but so has the total population. It should be remembered we are using total population rather than 16 and over which is what DoL uses. We argue that although we get the same end results that the metric is a stronger reflector.
The chart above shows the workforce as a percent of the total population. It continues to decline. That is a major concern because it means that DoL is reducing the denominator and thus allowing for lower unemployment rates. The difference is now quite material! On the other hand they show unemployed as decreasing but the problem here is that are adjusting for long term although they are now arguing that they somehow have accounted for them.
Finally we have the stats. One can see the DoL rates decreasing but the actual pegged rate is still above 12% and that means we are not getting rid of the problem.
Posts
