The Labor Department said that recent unemployment claims fell by 30,000 to a four-year low of 339,000.
A spokesman for the department stated that one large state accounted for much of the decline, but wouldn’t mention the state. It turns out that California didn’t get its figures in on time and thus wasn’t counted in the final unemployment claims number. California’s absence in the calculations would grossly skew the final number. I’m sure that Labor Department’s failure to mention the omission was calculated to paint a more optimistic picture of a steadily improving economy than is warranted. It lends some validity to the skepticism that a lot of people already felt regarding the sudden and unexpected half-point drop in the unemployment rate in the past two months.
Jim Foody, Sunny Isles















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