Jan. 13, 2004 - 16:35 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Fudging Figures

Maybe paraphrased a bit but I think it applies to economics and politicians nowadays, "Even the Devil quotes scripture."

Seems like both sides are trying to interpret the same figures, or part of them, to bolster their own cases.

An article in this mornings Rocky Mountain News titled, "Job data tell only part of story." By Louis Uchitelle of the New York Times.

Has some interesting things to say. "No economic statistic is watched more closely as a guage of the economic recovery's staying power -- or of President Bush's prospects among voters -- than the monthly employment numbers. Yet these numbers are failing to explain what is really happening to the nation's workers."

"More people are working than have been recorded in the official job count -- the one compiled by Bureau of Labor Statistics that gets all the attention . But that official unemployment, in turn, greatly understates the number of people who would like to be working."

In December, for example, the nation's employers added 1,000 new jobs, a small number, but the unemployment rate plunged 0.2 percentage points, according to data released by the bureau on Friday. How could there be only 1,000 new jobs 300,000 fewer unemployed people, as the December numbers suggest ?"

Mr. Uchitelle goes on, "The answer, economists say, is that the labor force has changed, and the official data no longer easily capture these changes, particularly the sharp rise in low-wage employment. The disparities in the numbers are giving politicians unusual leeway to make conflicting claims about the unemployment picture."

"And the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, N. Gregory Mankiw said in an interview that the official job count showing 1,000 new jobs in December was not accurate by itself. 'I view all economic statistics as imperfect,' he said. 'They have to be taken with a grain of salt.' In challenging The reliability of the official count, Mankiw sought to water down its message, which is that 2.3 million jobs have disappeared since President Bush took office in January 2001.

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So the Bureau Of Labor Statistics and the Congressional Budget Office reports don't jibe. It Figures.

And there are Macro and Micro economics, wherein there are as many different opinions as there are people in those categories. That 2.3 million jobs that disappeared since January of 2001 are jobs that will not return, now that business has found cheaper ways to employ foreign labor. One way or another foreign labor has made many of the items going into a finished product in the U.S. for years. For instance, electronic parts. Chips and Dips, very complicated things have been in production in the Far East for years.

There is a cartoon by Gary Markstein of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in todays paper. Four panels -- the first panel a man says, "As an illegal immigrant, I was allowed to apply for temporary work status in the U.S." In the next panel he says, "I got a job at a factory." Then in the third panel he says, "After 3 years, I moved back to my country, where I got a job . . . . And in the last panel he says, at the same factory when it moved there for cheaper labor !"

If it were me, I would add a fifth panel, the guy saying, "And then I lost my job when the factory moved to the Far East, labor there, cheaper yet."

Guess where those 2.3 million jobs went. . . . . .

Politicians using faulty statistics against each other . . . . . . Fudging Figures . . . . . . . . .

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