White House Celebrates the Decline in the Unemployment Rate

I was wondering how the White House might react to the bad news from the BLS:

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released new jobs figures for February. The unemployment rate decreased to 4.8 percent, below the averages for the past three decades, but nonfarm payroll employment decreased by 63,000 jobs. Our economy has added about 860,000 jobs over the last 12 months – an average of 72,000 jobs per month – and more than 8.1 million since August 2003.

See – it’s all good! They note the unemployment rate but fail to tell us that the household survey actually showed a 255,000 decline in employment pushing the employment to population ratio down from 62.9% to 62.7%. Yep – as long as this White House can spin good news, don’t fret that you just lost your job as that Bush Boom is still the most wonderful thing ever!

Update: I was wondering what the Korner Kids at the National Review might say about the employment report and it seems Ramesh Ponnuru had to dig so deep to find a good word that he turned to the labor market gurus at this outfit:

First Trust Advisors L.P. and its affiliate, First Trust Portfolios L.P., were established in 1991. We operate nationwide as well as in Canada and Europe and provide multiple investment services

That’s right – they are not labor market experts. But here is their happy news:

We were glad to see the unemployment rate tick down to 4.8%

And Ramesh is supposed to be the smart one over at the National Review. Lord – the standards really are pathetically low over there.