I have been one of the most outspoken critics of the monthly nonsense which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calls its “non-farm payrolls report”. Because the BLS has adopted numerous “techniques” for “adjusting” its numbers (i.e. lying), I have steered clear of their doctored numbers in previous criticisms – and focused on one of the few pieces of “hard data” available on U.S. employment: the weekly lay-off reports.
Traditionally, once those weekly lay-off reports begin to significantly exceed one million when totaled up on a monthly basis, the U.S. economy begins to experience net job-losses. Thus, when the weekly lay-offs soared to as high as
3 million per month, I pointed out that as a matter of simple arithmetic, the net job-losses had to increase to somewhere close to
2 million per month. In fact, this is likely a conservative estimate, as the weekly lay-off reports only capture a
portion of the U.S. jobs market.
However, I recently begin looking at a
different report – reported by the
same BLS – that releases the same data, but on a state-by-state basis. I was motivated to do so after reading the unmitigated drivel in
a recent article from the
Financial Times which was analyzing the U.S. jobs reports. The following statement caught my eye:
Although U.S. joblessness has shown signs of easing nationally in recent months, it continues to accelerate at the state level.
In other words, the oxymoron which the
Financial Times (and the rest of the propaganda-machine) is trying to pass-off is that the United States has two, entirely separate economies. There is the “national” economy - where the propaganda-machine assures us “the recession is over”, then there is the separate, state-by-state economy, where the “recession” continues to get worse.
It should therefore not be a big surprise to regular readers that the BLS's recent, state-by-state numbers have
absolutely zero correlation with their aggregate reports. To use less technical language, not only do the state-by-state numbers not add up to the aggregate national numbers,
there is simply no relationship between the two sets of numbers.
This complete divorce between the two sets of data has taken place over the last 3 months, which also should not be a surprise – since this is the same time period where I have accused the BLS of producing its largest lies (see
“U.S. created 2 million jobs in August, claim experts”).
To provide some context for this period, I will refer back to our only hard data: the weekly lay-off reports. Weekly lay-offs peaked at roughly 3 million per month, during the spring of this year.
While there has been
some improvement, lay-offs are still adding up to roughly 2.5 million per month –
far above the 1.2 million lay-offs per month which the U.S. was experiencing when it began losing jobs monthly on a
net basis.
As I have written on many occasions, lay-offs at this level imply
net monthly job-losses of at least
1.5 million jobs (see
“U.S. economy to lose 20 MILLION jobs this year”).
Conversely, here are the fictional numbers from the BLS for those same, three months:
- June 467,000 jobs lost
- July 247,000 jobs lost
- August 216,000 jobs lost
This brings us to the
separate reports from the BLS, with which it reports payroll changes on a state-by-state basis. Sadly, data is not included for every state, however the data which
is present proves that when the BLS produces its aggregate number that it is
not simply a total of the jobs lost in the 50 U.S. states – in other words, its headline aggregate number is obviously a fabrication (
here are the complete reports).
Here are the tables of “statistically significant” changes in employment for the last three months:
The data which is contained provides data on all states with “statistically significant” job losses, along with a tally of how many states lost jobs (or gained jobs) over the month. Here is that last piece of data, over the previous three months:
- June 39 states down, 10 states up (1 unchanged)
- July 29 states down, 21 states up
- August 42 states down, 8 states up
Already, we can see a huge discrepancy in the numbers. While both sets of data, show huge, fictional improvements between June and July, the state-by-state data shows a
reversal for August – with the labour market obviously deteriorating dramatically
based upon their own measurements. However, this didn't stop the BLS from refuting
its own data to report an
improvement between July and August, when it released its aggregate number.
The disconnect between the two sets of data is even more stunning when we look at “states with statistically significant employment changes” month to month, “
seasonally adjusted”. Before I discuss the data, a few comments are in order.