They have always had substantial revisions.

That’s pretty much how the compilation and presentation of large bodies of data works. You don’t normally get Holy Writ on the first pass.

Issa is an unimaginable hack.

The numbers were completely inconsistent. We need about 100K new jobs each month to keep up with population growth. We reported 114K new jobs from the hiring companies which is essentially flat.

The unemployment rate reported from a household survey dropped 0.3% in one month. 0.3% of the entire work force is more than 500K new employees.

One number is stagnation, the other a roaring recovery. Which is it?

All things considered, I am not at all surprised that some would suspect the administration was playing with the numbers.

Maybe Issa can add first-time unemployment claims into his hearing: they fell last week to the lowest level in four years.

David, from I’ve heard today, the initial claims numbers run contra to the idea that the data is good. The WSJ and other financial outlets are saying that the numbers went down because California did not report their claims. Evidently BLS has acknowledged that one “large” state did not report, and the financial outlets think it’s California. Seems odd considering the BLS release has some California figures included. Anyway, today’s major fall is likely to be corrected significantly next week.

My understanding is the numbers are revised especially the household data. But that data is not part of the 114k jobs. There were some upward revisions this month as well but that is normal. I don’t see fraud here. But what the hell everything else this admin does is fucked up, right? Issa has gotta be right!

I loathe destest & despise known-CROOK, Daryll Issa (who is sadly my putative “rep” in Congress). What a slime he is. All about the money just for him, alone.

That said, maybe the figures are right, and then again: maybe they’re not. All I know is that FOUR people I know personally got laid off within the last 2 weeks, and their likelihood of final gainful full-time employment anytime soon is about bupkiss.

I don’t see cause to celebrate those employment stats, myself, but Issa is wasting precious time bloviating about b.s. while consciously and deliberately doing EFF all to actually, you know, do *something* about the horrible lack of jobs in this country.

Screw Issa. Waste of MY valuable tax dollars. ptoui!

Wish I had a nickle for every time someone on this site said the unemployment numbers were wrong.

Of course, they could all be BLS Truther’s too.

Issa ia a despicable, self-serving asswipe. He givea hacks a bad name.

I feel sure that Obama, or his people, did cook the numbers….which would make them guilty of exactly the same thing that every preznint since who-knows-when, was guilty of doing.

Update from my previous post courtesy of Yahoo:

The state did report weekly jobless claims but did not process and report its quarterly claims number (when many people have to reapply for benefits for technical reasons as opposed to being newly laid off). As a result, there wasn’t the expected spike in claims that normally happens at the start of the quarter.

It is unclear why that happened or how unusual that is. What is clear is that the expected spike in claims around the start of each quarter was smaller this time than usual. Coupled with the seasonal adjustment (that expected a bigger increase), that pushed down the headline figure.

In other words, the drop of 30,000 last week had more to do with the lack of expected re-filings at the start of the fourth quarter than with any particular improvement in labor market conditions.

That also means that the decline which usually follows the spike won’t be as pronounced this time around, so the headline tally of jobless claims is likely to rebound next week.

All told, these two weeks’ worth of jobless claims will end up being more noise than signal. That may frustrate those who follow the series closely for clues into the health of the U.S. labor market. Coupled with last week’s payrolls report, it is also likely to fuel perception that labor market figures in general can’t be trusted.

The Labor Department appears to have had little choice in this matter, however; it couldn’t estimate what the one large state would or should have reported. Still, it may have been able to avoid more confusion had it more clearly articulated that in its weekly press release.

And now, there is one state’s labor department with plenty of explaining to do.

So, some state screwed up in its reporting, and the BLS was less than forthcoming about it in its press release. Stir in an upcoming presidential election, and you get a crazy cocktail.

Face it, BLS has been under the gun since Dick Nixon sent Fred Malek over there to “count Jews” who were out to get him by reporting jobs data wrongly, or at least in ways that reflected badly on Tricky Dick. The idea that they’d curry favor with a presidential administration is just as laughable as the idea that that they’d massage data to embarrass one.

Laughable. But with Issa, who’s laughing? You never can tell which one of these absurd investigations will catch fire; ask Monica.

I do believe Darryl Issa hates Barack Obama. Is it because he believes Obama is not one of us? Yes. Issa will never rise above Barack Obama, no matter how hard he tries. Obama will always be above the likes of people like Darryl Issa. Issa is rich, he is also a birther, a conspiracy theorist. What a nut.

Who cares?

Unemployment numbers have been manipulated to one degree or another since WWII, including by changing the way in which the number is arrived at.

The real issue is that too many people are out of work and way too few people seem to have a clue about how to get more of them working.

I agree, conspiracy theorists are nuts.