Hal Morris, writing on his GrumpyEditor.com blog, wants to know why no one apparently questioned the veracity of the most recent unemployment data.
The March data was released on Friday, April 1, hours after the month ended.
Morris writes, “Figures also were associated with March employment in the service-providing sector, the leisure and hospitality category, manufacturing (along with sub-categories), mining and local government, among others.
“The news release also pinpointed $22.87 as the ‘average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls’ in March.
“(Keep in mind there were about 26 million firms in the latest U.S. Census Bureau count.)
“All these figures, and others for March, were assembled before the clock struck midnight, ushering in April.
“Eyebrow-raising editors, usually suspicious of figures — from attendance at baseball games to precipitation amounts from the Weather Service — were mum on the instant tabulations that made front pages in many newspapers around the country and led-off radio and television news on April 1.”
Read more here.
