Today's Fake Jobs Report

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The government reported today that the economy added 117,000 jobs in July, and that unemployment had dropped to 9.1 percent.

But how can that be?  Fewer people were working in July than in June.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 139,296,000 people working in July, and 139,334,000 in June.  This represents a drop in employment of 38,000.  So how in the heck can the government claim that jobs were added and that unemployment dropped?

Let’s look at what the government calls “discouraged workers”, who are not included in the unemployment number.  This represents people who are unemployed and not even looking for work anymore.  In July, the number of discouraged workers went from 982,000 to 1,119,000 -- an increase of 137,000.

The remaining discrepancy is seasonal employees, like teachers and such, which I agree should probably not be counted.  But even throwing those out, the unemployment rate still got worse by around 20,000 jobs from June to July.

You can’t trust the government’s fake unemployment number.  It says things are getting better, when the truth is that more and more people are out of work.

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