https://twitter.com/Kelly_Evans/status/256393507240026113
Still think DC isn’t making sh*t up when it comes to economic reports? How can the Department of Labor say with a straight face that there was a jobless claims drop when they knew one state didn’t report their data? This omission would of course skew the numbers lower and make the numbers look better than they actually are.
“The discrepancy is that “one state did not process & report its typical seasonal workload” and that a rebound next week is likely.
DoL had to know this yet choose not to make it public. However, it leaked out anyway. If the allegations about one state not being included weren’t true, DOL would have immediately denied it – and they haven’t.
Our government increasingly appears to be a Potemkin Village, a “construct, physical or figurative, intended to deceive outside people into thinking that something is better than it actually is.”
Update:Â All states were included but not all the California numbers made it into the report.
In other words, had all of California’s jobless claims been processed in time to make the jobless-claims release, this jobless number would still have been better than economists were expecting–but not as much better as it appeared.
All of which remains a bit Potemkin to me.