On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 07:40:41 -0500, thunder
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 04:02:16 +0000, Steven Shelikoff wrote:


Someone should tell the Wisconsin State Journal to check the figures in
their editorials before they publish them.

The figures are accurate. The Wisconsin figures are "gross" job losses.
Your figure, 24,000, is "net" jobs lost. To reconcile the two, think
population growth.

Wrong again. From the BLS website:

Labor force status: Unemployed
Type of data: Number in thousands
Age: 16 years and over

Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug
Sep Oct Nov Dec
2003 8428 8581 8519 8799 8957 9245 9048 8929
8966 8797 8653 8398

IOW, there were 8,428,000 unemployed persons over 16 in Jan 2003 and
8,398,000 unemployed persons in Dec 2003. Where are the 1.2 million
people who lost their job? Especially if the population is growing.

Labor force status: Unemployment rate
Type of data: Percent
Age: 16 years and over

Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug
Sep Oct Nov Dec
2003 5.8 5.9 5.8 6.0 6.1 6.3 6.2 6.1
6.1 6.0 5.9 5.7

The unemployment rate takes into account changes in population. The
rate was 5.8% in Jan 2003 and 5.7% in Dec 2003.

If you'd like to contend that the Wisconsin figures are anything but a
total fabrication, where's the data to back them up?

Steve