5 Comments
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PAULA ADAMS's avatar

I thought of you when I saw that news. 🤣

Peter Nayland Kust's avatar

Hopefully in a good way 😁

Gbill7's avatar

You are entitled to enjoy a victory lap, Peter. I haven’t read any other analysts or political pundits who have caught the data discrepancies as you have. Great job!

I still have many questions about the data that I hope will be answered in time. For example, construction jobs have increased, and that’s good news for construction workers. But construction of what, exactly? If it’s building new single-family homes, that’s a great sign that the economy overall is improving. If it’s construction of apartment buildings - meaning that people can’t afford to buy a house - then it’s not. If construction is all about building new data centers, then that’s an entirely different signal about the direction of the economy.

More jobs in health care is probably not good news, as it indicates that people are becoming sicker and more disabled. Is it just the Boomers aging, or are there figures that adjust for that? More jobs in social assistance can’t possibly be a good sign, but maybe those will decrease as the fentanyl crisis is lessened due to the border being closed?

I look forward to your future posts digging into the data, Peter. You are just the BEST at this!

Flippin’ Jersey's avatar

Someone please explain to me, like I’m a 5 year old, how the f-ck you can overcount a million f-cking jobs?! BLS must employ to dumbest people on the planet. Meteorologists are more accurate!

Peter Nayland Kust's avatar

They don't actually "count" the jobs. From their survey responses they extrapolate estimated jobs numbers.

For the past several years their statistical model for performing the extrapolate has been demonstrably defective. Presumably the Trump Administration has fixed it, but we won't know that until we are no longer seeing large revisions all skewed in the same direction.