Job One

Ninety nine dreams I have had
In every one a red balloon
It's all over and I'm standing pretty
In this dust that was a city
--Nena

The January unemployment rate printed at 9.0%, down from 9.4% last month and 9.8% in December. That's the largest two month decline in over 50 yrs.

On the other hand, the number of actual people employed increased by 36,000--the smallest increase in four months.

How can the unemployment rate be dropping so much while the number of people employed barely moves? It is because more people are leaving the workforce. As more people are labeled as 'discouraged', they are removed from consideration in the headline unemployment calculation.

If these discouraged workers were put back into the headline number, then unemployment rate would be in the 16-18% range. We should note that back in the 1930s discouraged workers were part of the headline number that consistently printed in the 20% range.

Of course, truthful disclosure is not the aim of government econometric reports. The goal of bureacrats is to spin the data in favor of those in power.

Seemingly, propaganda is Job One.