Marketplace Disses Trump

Mr. Ryssdal has made a fundamental error. He assumes the BLS gathers the data for the unemployment rate. That is not true. BLS outsources data collection to the Bureau of the Census. And, shortly after taking office in his first term, President Obama moved Census from it’s long-time home in the Department of Commerce to the Executive Office of the President. Which means the administration directly runs the critical data collection job for much of the government. Continue Reading →

Obama the Job Creator

All jobs are not created equal. The BLS household survey only asks whether someone is employed or not. People who have a part-time job but would like full-time work are also counted as employed. The BLS says they are “underemployed.”
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Unemployment Drops to 8.6% — Can the News Really Be That Good?

The current increases in U.S. output are largely being fueled by huge productivity increases. As the U.S. moves increasingly toward a service producing information economy, the productivity of educated people will continue to soar. The question of what happens to the rest of the population remains unanswered. Continue Reading →