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PDFWhile employers added only a modest 114,000 jobs last month, the jobless rate declined from 8.1 percent in August. The unemployment rate fell because more people were working, not because discouraged job seekers stopped looking, the numbers showed.
Adding to the positive news, job gains were revised upward by 40,000 for July (to 181,000) and by 46,000 for August (to 142,000), casting a slightly rosier light on what had been perceived as a summer slump.
Cornet on Budget Polities and Priorities:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is a bipartisan, independent entity, firewalled from the White House and Department of Labor. The Repubs are having hissy fits over the new job/unemployment figures and accusing the Obama administration of “cooking the books.” Alas, wrong. The unemployment rate – about 10% when Obama entered office, has now gone UNDER 8%, and new jobs are being added at a decent clip.
Birthers, Truthers and Jobbers, Oh My:
The economy added 114,000 jobs in September and unemployment declined to 7.8 percent. Not great numbers, but paired with major upward revisions to previous monthly reports and taken in the context of a slowly recovering economy, the report was viewed as good news for America.
Unless, of course, you were hoping for bad news. And apparently quite a few of President Obama’s critics were — so much so that they suggested the Bureau of Labor Statistics was part of a vast conspiracy.
The leader of the “job truther” movement: former GE CEO Jack Welch.
“Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers,” he said on Twitter.
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