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Seems that the Biden admin has been exaggerating the job growth situation...

Whoda Thunkit

It's all a part of the Best economy ever, Jack!. 12.4 QUADRILLION new jobs created out of thin air, baby!

Hire more people to count the unemployed.

#KamalaJobs

bighairymike: Seems that the Biden admin has been exaggerating the job growth situation......

Dope1: It's all a part of the Best economy ever, Jack!. 12.4 QUADRILLION new jobs created out of thin air, baby!

Sheesh.

Let's review.

Prior to this revision, the Biden-Harris administration added 15.8 million jobs during their first 42 months in office. Now this revision removes 818,000 jobs to leave, wait for it, 14.9 million jobs added, the most created by any modern presidency in a four-year term.

And a 3.4% unemployment rate, another modern record.

But, sure, try to spin the best jobs growth since, what, FDR, as failure.

These revisions are an annual practice by the BLS, although I don’t recall one this large (not that I follow annual revisions).

Some select paragraphs from the link:

The report moves down the monthly job additions seen in the US economy over the time period to 174,000 from 242,000.

"Despite this big downward revision, that's still a very healthy growth rate in terms of the monthly jobs added to the economy," Omair Sharif, Inflation Insights president, told Yahoo Finance.

Furthermore, economists cautioned ahead of the release about how much investors should read into the print given its backward-looking nature.

"The realization that the economy created fewer jobs than initially estimated [does not] change the broader trends in GDP growth, stock market and wealth gains, and consumption," RBC Capital Markets US economist Michael Reid wrote in a note to clients on Aug. 16.

"It's important to zoom out a little bit in this kind of situation," Evercore ISI senior economist Marco Casiraghi told Yahoo Finance. "And I think this is also what the Fed will do. And if you zoom out, you see that the economy is slowing down, but still growing. The labor market is softening, but it's not rapidly deteriorating."


https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-employment-falls...

14.9 million jobs added, the most created by any modern presidency in a four-year term. - CO

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You left off "fueled by the inevitable comeback from the covid lockdowns"

These revisions are an annual practice by the BLS, although I don’t recall one this large (not that I follow annual revisions). - AW

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The news segment said it was the largest revision in 15 years.....

So?

Economy is still better now than when Biden took office. Revisions not withstanding. I don't care about revisions, per se. I care about the overall progress and direction over some period of time.

And, frankly, Harris can't really take credit (or blame) for that. So keep focusing on Biden, and ignore Harris. Go for it. It's almost as absurd as focusing on Hunter instead of Joe (which is really really really silly). So, yeah, rail against Hunter, too (not that you, BHM, are...but some of your cohort is). Continue to ignore Harris.

Let's review.

Yes, let's review. You people have been counting Covid jobs in a dishonest way to claim success.

Don't sell BS here. We're all full up already.

Economy is still better now than when Biden took office.

It's demonstrably worse than pre-Covid. Not debatable.

And, frankly, Harris can't really take credit (or blame) for that.

LOL. So she's simultaneously responsible for all the successes but none of the failures. Got it.

AlphaWolf: These revisions are an annual practice by the BLS, although I don’t recall one this large...

Indeed.

For example, in 2019 (pre-pandemic):

New revised numbers this week from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed job-creation estimates had been off by about 20 percent. The data showed that about 2 million jobs were created between April 2018 and March 2019. That is 500,000 fewer jobs than the estimates had originally shown.

Gross Domestic Product numbers were also revised down earlier in 2019 for 2018, from 3% to 2.5%.

So, yeah, these numbers are routinely adjusted, sometimes up, sometimes down.

But if you think the Biden revisions will mean anything to the average American and the election, good luck with that, Jack!

So she's simultaneously responsible for all the successes but none of the failures. Got it.

That's literally the opposite of what I just wrote.

I also note that when you say "not debatable", you're almost always wrong. In this case, you want to pretend COVID didn't happen. Well, it did. You don't penalize the convict for what happened during COVID, but you penalize Biden for the aftermath of COVID. COVID caused both inflation and unemployment as people had to isolate, and supply chains were heavily affected. If you want to hold the convict free of responsibility for that, then you must hold Biden equally as free. So we then are left with what the direction of the economy has been. For the last three years, inflation has been trending down, unemployment is trending down, the stock market is trending up...basically the economy recovered and is firing on all cylinders now.

I know that won't change your mind, but those are the facts. Verifiable, if you care to check. For example, U6 unemployment reached a record low in 2022 (care to guess who was POTUS then?). It's record high was in 2020 (prior to the change of POTUS). Yes, 2020 COVID was in full bloom. Kinda the point. You can't ignore that.

Economy is still better now than when Biden took office.

DOPE: It's demonstrably worse than pre-Covid. Not debatable.

SNIP The expansion in economic activity in the recovery proved to be stronger and faster than initial projections, and by the end of 2023 job creation was well above and economic activity was slightly above their pre-pandemic projections. SNIP

https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/tracking-the...

So once we got away from Trump's flailing around at being a Covid President, and the independent FED (sans P2025 and any of Trump's BS say so) along with Biden's initiatives brought the economy to better than pre-pandemic projections. Except in Dope world.

That's literally the opposite of what I just wrote. Was it, now. I'm going to ignore the bits where you want to make it about me.

pretend COVID didn't happen

That's not the point. The point is that COVID represented a massive exogenous shock on the economy and Biden taking office just as all the lockdowns were lifted isn't something he gets credit for. The baseline numbers aren't valid for comparison purposes.

You won't change your mind, but those are the facts.

Okay, here's an strictly non-partisan, but equal opportunity political rant.

How can government be so stupid to rely upon such archiac practices for collecting information of such vital importance to government and business alike?

Employment rates are perhaps THE most closely watched canary in the economic coal mine. Perceptions of where employment trends are headed drive BILLION DOLLAR decisions every day in the Federal Reserve, in the government and through every industry. Yet note the text of the story from August 21 of 2024...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ preliminary annual benchmark review of employment data suggests that there were 818,000 fewer jobs in March of this year than were initially reported.

Translated, the BLS is STILL preparing a PRELIMINARY estimate of a statistic involving employment activity from FIVE MONTHS AGO.

Does that make any sense?

Unless American employment trends have shifted sharply towards busking in a subway with an open guitar case, the VAST majority of "employees" are paid via electronic processors. I seriously doubt ANY employer is mailing a paper check to the IRS each weekly / bi-weekly /monthly payroll for the amount of payroll taxes due. All of those payments are taking place electronically and likely settle within 24 hours.

Think about all of the data those payroll tax payments must reflect:

* SSN or Individual Taxpayer ID Number (ITIN) of the worker
* Employer ID Number (EIN) of the firm paying the income
* an indication whether the pay involves hourly rates or salaried work
* an indication of hours worked (so state / federal governments can watch for OT violations)

From all that data, it should be obvious how to devise a more accurate and nearly instantaneous analysis of "job" changes in the market.

* every unique combination of SSN/ITIN and employer ID is a POTENTIAL "job"
* if a combination (SSN/ITIN + EIN) appearing in data for prior week / month STOPS appearing, that COULD be a job elimination
* if a NEW combination (SSN/ITIN + EIN) not previously seen in prior terms begins appearing, that COULD be a job addition
* if the SAME SSN/ITIN appears in a "loss" and a "gain" bucket, that could be due to:
a) that worker QUITTING job A and starting job B
b) that worker changing from contractor A to employer B for same work
c) that worker changing from employer A to contractor B for same work
d) that worker staying in the same job which has been shifted between subsidiaries that triggers a change in employer ID

There should be enough other metadata available in what employers have to submit with payroll tax payments to help filter out scenario (d).

By adjusting time-series criteria to set minimums for consecutive periods where (SSN + EID) must appear to count as an add (so one week of pay that never recurs doesn't count as an "add") or minimum consecutive periods where an SSN fails to appear entirely before counting as an eliminated job, a relatively simple report can be generated with virtually no human intervention or tweaking that could trigger accusations of political manipulation.

Since the incoming payroll tax data reflects absolute dollars and hours, summary statistics could extrapolate trends regarding overtime, pay raises (wages and salaries...), etc. It would provide instant insight into labor patterns such as people working multiple part-time jobs. It would provide nearly instant insight into income losses stemming from hurricanes, floods, port shutdowns due to bridge collapses, you name it. Little need to GUESS impacts, the data should be immediately available.

If only there was a base.... in which we could put data... allowing information to be extracted with a human-friendly language... that allowed queries to be executed based on the structure of the data... I bet some standard scheme or protocol could be devised to control the transmission of data between a collection of computers, all interconnected together as a network or internet....

Gosh, if only that technology existed, this would be a piece of cake.

(sigh...)


WTH

It's demonstrably worse than pre-Covid.

How so? By what numbers?

If it's demonstrably worse, please demonstrate.

--Peter

Think about all of the data those payroll tax payments must reflect:

* SSN or Individual Taxpayer ID Number (ITIN) of the worker
* Employer ID Number (EIN) of the firm paying the income
* an indication whether the pay involves hourly rates or salaried work
* an indication of hours worked (so state / federal governments can watch for OT violations)

Now you're getting into my area of professional expertise.

You are correct in that payroll tax payments are made very regularly by employers. Really big employers need to pay the payroll taxes the day after payroll is paid. Most other employers get a couple of days to pay the taxes. The very smallest can pay them monthly.

But there is no employee-level data in those payments. None at all. Not to the IRS. All the IRS sees is the amount of the payment, the employer's ID number, and the calendar quarter in which the payroll was paid. That's it.

At the state level, individual states might collect more information. I'm only intimately familiar with my home state, California. Here, the payroll tax payments are due on basically the same schedule as the federal tax payments. And, like the federal payments, contain no employee-level data.

Every quarter, California gets employee level data, but only name, SSN, and wages paid and state taxes withheld during the quarter. No hourly vs. salary. No hours worked. No overtime information.

California also has a new hire reporting system. Within a few days of hiring, the name and SSN of the new employee must be reported to the state. But that's it. (This reporting is used to help the state with tax and child support collections - so you can't avoid wage levies by moving employers. The state will catch up to you with a fresh levy within one or maybe two paychecks at most.) This information might help with new hire statistics. But there is no counterpart reporting for those leaving jobs.

The data your are assuming simply doesn't exist where it is accessible to nationwide statisticians. Hence the need for estimates.

--Peter

But there is no employee-level data in those payments.

Well, that explains it. We are idiots. I can think of far more intrusive information the government could demand than seeing my income / hours per paycheck. They're GOING to know the total income amount by the end of quarter anyway. The VALUE of this data to understanding the economy is VAST and all of the information is right there. It would likely take little effort to alter the report format sent to the IRS and run the jobs weekly rather than quarterly.

Frustrating.


WTH

You left off "fueled by the inevitable comeback from the covid lockdowns"

Curious that it didn’t work that way in England.

Also curious that it didn’t work that way in France.

Also curious that it didn’t work that way in Japan.

Also curious that it didn’t work that way in China.

Also curious that it didn’t work that way in Brazil.

Also curious that it didn’t work that way in Italy,

Also curious that it didn’t work that way in Greece.

Also curious that it didn’t work that way in Argentina.

Also curious that it didn’t work that way in Mexico.

It seems to be a curious definition for “inevitable”, doesn’t it?

The United States has had the highest economic growth in the G7 since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its economy 5.4 percent larger in the first quarter of 2023, when compared with the fourth quarter of 2019. By contrast, the United Kingdom and Germany have both seen their economies shrink by 0.5 percent in the same time period.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1392678/g7-gdp...

Well, that explains it. We are idiots.

I'd point to privacy concerns. Do we really need to poke that deeply into everyone's business just to collect statistics on employment? The less intrusive surveys are generally not that bad. This was one of the larger annual adjustment in recent history.

Putting it into perspective, the previous estimate of employment was 160 million as of a few months ago. This adjustment (which is still an estimate) makes that figure 159.2 million. So the estimate of total employment was off by 0.5% compared to this newly revised estimate.

--Peter

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