Media Lies: Those January Jobs Gains Never Happened

 When are 335,000 new jobs not 335,000 new jobs? When Washington makes them up and the media dutifully report them with all due breathlessness.

But first, let's look at how the media reported January's job numbers.

January Jobs Report Was a Blowout. Disregard the Seasonal Noise. —Barrons

The U.S. created an extraordinary number of jobs in January. Here's a deeper look. —NPR

U.S. employment soars by 353,000, stunning Wall Street. —MarketWatch

If you go to the more usual suspects, you'll see "Another shockingly good jobs report shows America's economy is booming" from CNN, "Blockbuster Jobs Report Backs Up Fed’s Patience as It Waits to Cut Rates," from the NYT, and this gag-worthy bit from NBC News: "The great American jobs machine keeps revving in an election year."

With all those new jobs, why do Americans remain so glum about Bidenomics? Newsmax reported Sunday that "President Joe Biden hit yet another new low in his approval rating," at eye-popping 37% according to the latest NBC News poll.

Democrat pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates conducted the poll for NBC and called the results "Damning" and described Biden's as "a presidency in peril." Horwitt added, "On every measure compared to 2020, Biden has declined. Most damning, the belief that Biden is more likely to be up to the job - the chief tenet of the Biden candidacy - has evaporated." Ouch.

Barone wrote, "The workweek, itself, contracted to 34.1 hours from 34.3 in December and 34.4 in November. This is the lowest number since March 2020 and, before that, November 2008." "Rosenberg Research calculated that, despite the job gains, total hours worked actually contracted." In fact, the Household Survey - "The one the media ignores," as Barone put it - "Showed up with a -31K headline jobs number, and a fall of -63K in full-time jobs." Worse, the labor participation rate remains down.

Americans are working more part-time jobs because there are fewer full-time jobs to go around - a sizable fraction of last month's jobs went to people taking on a second or third job.

Advertisement So how did the BLS come up with 335,000 new jobs when the Household Survey showed a net loss of 31,000? For that, let's go to Seeking Alpha: The BLS also publishes the data behind their Birth/Death assumptions.

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/02/05/january-jobs-data-actually-sucked-n4926132