Misrepresenting the Economy
The AP is unbelievable. Check out this headline:
"Payrolls Grow Smallest Amount Since Oct." - AP.

Here's the first paragraph:

New hiring slowed significantly in April as employers added just 138,000 people to their payrolls, the slowest pace of job growth in six months. The overall unemployment rate held steady at 4.7 percent.

Dude, unemployment is at 4.7%. Up until a few years ago, nobody though unemployment under 5% was even possible. The fact that new job creation slowed slightly might be indicative that the economy is at full employment.

Consider the next two paragraphs:

The latest snapshot of labor market activity, released by the Labor Department on Friday, also showed a sharp jump in workers' wages, which is sure to raise inflation fears.

Wages grew by 3.8 percent over the last year, the biggest 12-month gain since August 2001.

The headline makes the reader think the economy is doing poorly, but it's actually so hot that inflationary fears are being raised by economists. True, no? Yes, but buried at the end of the article:

The report comes as analysts expect the economy to log slower growth in the April-to-June quarter, predicting it will expand by about 3 percent. Such growth would mark a moderation from the brisk 4.8 percent pace registered in the January-to-March period but would still be considered healthy.

Actually it would be twice as high as the historical average growth of the US economy, not just healthy.
- posted by Base10 @ 9:45 AM