Unemployment Down, Unemployment Up: Looking Past the News Blurbs

The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistcs (BLS) announced that October unemployment was down to 10% from 10.2% in September. The unemployment benefits extension that Congress agreed to in November was not appoved by the Senate until December and thus those individuals that were eligible for the unemployment benefits under the extension did not get counted in the BLS November numbers as they were neither "here" nor "there".

We will not be surprised to see December's BLS info give us 10.2%+ as these people are again counted as unemployed. Of course, one might ask why we don't count the rest of the unemployed who taken together push the real unemployment rate to 17-18%. Wait until January when the holiday hiring effect is gone.