Job Statistics Managed by BLS : Democrat Thumbs At Work

It seems that the Bureau of Labor Statistics, BLS, has their collective thumbs on the scale when complying the data on unemployment in Republican states and democrat states. This of course does not come as a surprise to anyone.

 

When the democrats are in power they use what ever club they can grab to beat the opposition into submission even if it means using tax funded agencies like the BLS, and of course the IRS, the DOJ, the FBI, the DHS etc. etc. When the democrats are in power all federal agencies are subjected to the heavy hand of tyranny to do as they are told, the Constitution be dammed.

 

As always, it's the motto of the progressive democrats, 'by any means necessary' to get and keep power no matter if the entire country suffers as a consequence.

 

Lies, Damned Lies and (Jobs) Statistics

WSJ

By Allysia Finley

 

Sept. 23, 2014 5:11 p.m. ET

Jobs numbers don't lie, but they don't always capture the entire truth. Just ask Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, who was ridiculed by Democrats last week for suggesting that the gnomes at the Bureau of Labor Statistics were rigging state unemployment data.

 

"It's ironic that in a year in which Republican governors are leading some of the states that are making the most progress, that they almost, without exception, are classified as having a bump in their unemployment rates," Mr. Deal groused. "Whereas states that are under Democrat governors' control, they are all showing that their unemployment rate has dropped. And I don't know how you account for that. Maybe there is some influence here that we don't know about."

 

Mr. Deal is in an unexpectedly tight race for re-election against Democratic state Sen. Jason Carter, the grandson of the former president. Georgia's recent disappointing jobs numbers are figuring heavily into Mr. Carter's campaign. During the governor's first 40 months in office, the state's unemployment rate dropped to 6.9% from 10.1%. However, the rate has ticked up to 8.1% since April as 52,000 jobs were reportedly lost.

 

North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia have also recorded jobs losses and unemployment increases this summer, so the problem appears regional. The BLS may later revise the numbers up, though the timing of the downward blip is no doubt inconvenient for Republicans in Georgia.

There's no evidence that unemployment rates are spiking in GOP-governed states while plunging in Democratic ones. However, it's true that job gains in some Republican states like Kansas and Florida aren't being reflected in their unemployment rates because their labor forces have expanded equally fast. It's also true that unemployment rates in some Democratic states have fallen sharply in part due to a contraction of the labor force.

 

Case in point is Illinois, where the unemployment rate has slid to 6.7% from 8.7% since January. Gov. Pat Quinn bragged that "it's the steepest decline in unemployment in the last 30 years in Illinois." Yet during this period, 56,000 Illinois workers dropped out of the labor force, which isn't exactly a sign of a healthy economy. The Illinois Policy Institute notes that the state's labor-force participation rate is at a 35-year low.

 

The point here is that unemployment numbers can be misleading, which is why Republicans like Mr. Deal need to be able to cite significant policy accomplishments and present a broader governing agenda.