Friday, May 7, 2010

April Unemployment

Gateway Pundit reports on the BLS Situation Report:
US Nonfarm Payrolls increase by 290K in April. Unemployment rate up to 9.9%. It was the highest rate of unemployment since December.
Here's Instapundit's always pithy take:
JOBLESS RATE RISES TO 9.9%. UNEXPECTEDLY! But the spin is positive
Here's Yahoo! FinanceJobs up 290,000; jobless rate rises to 9.9 pct:
The economy got what it was looking for in April: A burst of hiring that added a net 290,000 jobs, the biggest monthly total in four years.
Wait! The Wall Street Journal will cut through the rainbows and unicorns and give me the numbers straight! Right?
Economists expect the unemployment rate to fall very slowly as discouraged job seekers who had stopped looking for work return to the labor force and are counted as unemployed.
No. Apparently not. So here's the BLS Employment Situation Report money quote [link will break in a month--I blame BLS]:
Among the marginally attached, there were 1.2 million discouraged workers in April, up by 457,000 from a year earlier.
As you can see, The Won's plan to create, save, and discourage workers continues apace. I'm just wondering, if 290k is the most jobs added in four years, when was the last time we added nearly half a million newly discouraged workers? Has that ever occurred?

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