Unemployment Stats: 'Who You Gonna Believe, Me or Your Lying Eyes?'

So what do you think of Friday’s new jobless numbers?

This is what I think.  Every first Friday of the month, when the government releases the latest monthly unemployment statistics, my reaction is the same.  There’s been so little change for so long now that, month after month, I think we’re simply being “spun.”   Whether the rate goes up or down, the government wants us to believe that the job situation is getting better, even though it really isn’t.

Surely that’s what’s going on today.  The April 2011 unemployment rate is up to 9 percent (up from 8.8 percent in March), but we’re being told that that’s because more jobs were created last month, so more people are out there looking for work again (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-06/u-s-payrolls-increased-244-000-in-april-unemployment-rate-climbs-to-9-.html).  

So the fact that unemployment is now at 9 percent is actually a good thing, if you accept this line of reasoning.  I would like very much to believe that this means that things are improving, but I can’t.

I’m not a statistician, and I’m no expert at working with numbers, but I am familiar with the expression, “Lies, damned lies and statistics.”  I did a little searching and found that the US unemployment rate two years ago, in April 2009, was 8.9 percent – about the same as the April 2011 rate.

To me this means that, in the past two years, the job situation hasn’t gotten any better at all.  There’s been virtually no change.

I’m not trying to be gloomy, just realistic.  Am I being too pessimistic?  Are my eyes lying to me?