Friday, April 3, 2009

Revisionists

by the Sandwichman

March unemployment wasn't as bad as the BLS reported. It was worse. The 663,000 job losses reported comes on top of a 86,000 downward revision in the January number, making the net loss 749,000. Moreover, the average monthly revision since September 2008 has been 158,000 jobs. There have been no upward revisions. So it would come as no surprise if the revised number for March alone (that is excluding revisions of previous months) was closer to that 749,000 figure than to 663,000.

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