The owebumeconomy.
Every action owebuma has taken with regard to domestic policy, economics and employment have steamrolled real hard working tax paying Americans...
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This post will document wnat transpired at the Associated Press on Thursday before and just after the release of the government's employment report.
It should be a humiliating lesson to its business and economics writers.
One would hope that they might learn to concentrate solely on discerning and accurately reporting the relevant facts, and to leave the analysis to others. (I know; fat chance.)
As will be seen after the jump, several hours before that jobs report, the AP's Christopher Rugaber was all ready to pronounce the job market as "nearing full health," basing his bizarre assessment largely on "a surge in people looking for work"
(reports referenced at this post have been saved at my host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes; bolds are mine throughout this post):
SOLID HIRING EXPECTED FOR JUNE AS US JOB MARKET NEARS NORMAL
U.S. employers likely hired at another strong pace in June, a sign that the job market is nearing full health and giving the Federal Reserve reason to raise interest rates as early as September.
Economists predict that employers added 233,000 jobs and that the unemployment rate dipped to 5.4 percent from 5.5 percent in May, according to data firm FactSet.
... The job gains are also showing tentative signs of finally forcing up wages, which have remained stagnant for many Americans during the 6-year-old economic recovery.
Pay is now rising for some because employers have been forced to offer higher wages to attract qualified employees.
Those trends have raised economists' expectations that the Fed will soon raise the key short-term rate it controls in September or, if not, in December.
The Fed has kept that rate at a record low near zero for 6 1/2 years to support the economy.
A Fed rate hike would lead to higher rates for mortgages, auto loans and other borrowing.
In May, many more Americans started seeking work.
Even though employers added a robust 280,000 jobs in May, they weren't enough to fully absorb the influx of job seekers.
As a result, the unemployment rate rose a notch to 5.5 percent.
Still, a surge in people looking for work is a healthy sign because it suggests rising optimism about job prospects.
Assuming that most of the new job seekers eventually find work, the rise in employment levels should eventually accelerate consumer spending and economic growth.
And there will be dancing in the streets ...
For heaven's sake, Rugaber's definition of a "surge" was the single month of May.
Sure, the seasonally adjusted civilian workforce increased by 397,000, but before the report there was no good reason to believe that it was the start of a genuine trend.
During the three previous months, the civilian workforce shrank by 108,000.
Workforce growth during this alleged "recovery" has badly trailed the growth in the adult population, leading to a record 93 million Americans not in the the labor force, as workforce participation has sunk to levels last seen in the 1970s (and baby-boomer retirements don't explain the rise).
Rugaber was apparently so convinced that the "nearing full health" scenario was going to play out that he celebrated its near-achievement in the opening of his 8:39 a.m. writeup shortly after the government's release:
US EMPLOYERS ADD 223K JOBS; JOBLESS RATE FALLS TO 5.3 PCT.
U.S. employers added a solid 223,000 jobs in June, and the unemployment rate fell to 5.3 percent, a seven-year low.
The numbers reflect a job market moving close to full health and raise expectations that the Federal Reserve will start raising interest rates as early as September.
Rugaber's next two paragraphs contradicted his "moving close to full health" assessment, but he either didn't know that, or didn't care:
The Labor Department said Thursday that the unemployment rate dropped from 5.5 percent in May.
The rate fell mostly because many people out of work gave up on their job searches and were no longer counted as unemployed.
Other details in the report were less encouraging:
The percentage of Americans working or looking for work fell to a 38-year low.
Average hourly pay was flat.
And employers added 60,000 fewer jobs in April and May than the government had previously estimated.
Uh, Chris?
What happened to that "surge in people looking for work" you praised before the jobs report as if it was an obvious trend?
And that "average hourly pay was flat" statement is a bit different from your original take on the trend in employee pay, isn't it?
Yet ... "the job market is moving close to full health"?
Keep in mind that, unless the government's policies have recently changed, Rugaber was more than likely among a very few media members who had lock-up access to the report and its contents an hour before the rest of the world got to see it.
If so, he clearly had plenty of time to reassess his overall take, and he didn't.
Oh, wait.
He did reassess — a half-hour later, at 9:12 a.m.
All signs of "nearing full health" and "moving close to full health" disappeared, replaced with "a mixed picture."
But in a later paragraph, the AP reporter clung to a "this time it's different" tune:
US EMPLOYERS ADD 223K JOBS; JOBLESS RATE FALLS TO 5.3 PCT.
U.S. employers added a solid 223,000 jobs in June, and the unemployment rate fell to 5.3 percent, a seven-year low.
But wages failed to budge, and other barometers of the job market paint a mixed picture.
The unemployment rate fell from 5.5 percent in May, the Labor Department said Thursday.
But the rate fell mostly because many people out of work gave up on their job searches and were no longer counted as unemployed.
In addition, the percentage of Americans working or looking for work fell to a 38-year low, a possible sign of more discouraged job seekers.
And employers added 60,000 fewer jobs in April and May combined than the government had previously estimated.
... The job gains show that employers are increasingly confident that their customer demand will keep growing.
Their willingness to hire in anticipation of greater demand marks a shift from earlier in the economic recovery, when many businesses tended to hire only when essential.
The smart-aleck response to Rugaber's final paragrph would be:
"Yeah, confidence is up at places which serve food and at car dealers who let people drive off the lot with 'liar loans.'
Excuse us for being unimpressed."
That's because, unfortunately, that confidence is for the most part not reflected in hard numbers relating to manufacturing and (until recently) construction, or at retailers in many sectors.
What transpired here is important to note, because it's more than a mere game of "gotcha."
The opening paragraph of Rugaber's 8:39 a.m. report containing the completely unjustified "closing in on full health" assessment is what was read verbatim or nearly so on 9:00 a.m. radio broadcasts around the country, and was certainly the most-seen paragraph online.
His opening paragraph was certainly referenced in many if not most of the email alerts from various media outlets which went to computers, tablets and smartphones around the nation.
By the time he reassessed, the untruthful damage was done.
Interest in the contents of economic reports drops like a rock after the first takes.
Many radio stations and other broadcasters usually move on to other matters within an hour or two — and even if they don't, the chances are that they stick with what they read the first time around.
Why would they expect a complete reassessment from the outfit they (erroroneously) believe is the world's most reliable news source?
And it would be out of the ordinary for an issuer of email alerts to issue any kind of revision.
Thus, Rugaber's reassessment was way too little and way too late.
It was bad enough that he had such obviously preconceived notions ahead of time, but he made it far, far worse by sticking to them even when the facts clearly contradicted them.
If he wants to know why so many of us are so annoyed at how AP reporters do their work, this would make for a pretty good Exhibit A.
Business and economics reporters should know that it's hard enough to get your arms around the relevant facts you believe the public should know.
To the extent that they engage in "analysis," they distract themselves from that effort, and leave themselves wide open to charges of bias.
I suspect many readers will react to the scenario described here, which caused many Americans to believe that the jobs report was far stronger than it really was, as mighty convenient for the Obama administration, and possibly more than the result of shoddy effort.
Why shouldn't they?
These sorts of things always seem to go in that direction during this administration, don't they?
As the marquis topic defining the utter failure of owebuma, jobs have taken a beating across the board.
full article...
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2015/07/07/how-convenient-aps-rugaber-changes-post-jobs-report-assessment#sthash.07JbQMHk.dpuf
