Don't Be Fooled By the Jobless Numbers

The press is crowing because today's accounting of job losses came in at 345,000 instead of the expected 500,000 (according to a TV report I saw). However, Don Surber adds some context:

The May numbers would have been worse, except the government added 187,000 jobs.

But hey, the Obama administration is saying that prosperity is just around the corner.

The official net job loss in May was 345,000. But the private sector had a net loss of 532,000 jobs.

And those are preliminary numbers, which have been lowballed each month (revised upward later) under this president.

So, the private sector continues to bleed jobs at a terrible pace, but thank you government, there are now 187,000 more people on the taxpayer's dime. That's not the change I had hoped for.

Jim Geraghty adds this via Twitter:

According to the Department of Labor, the U.S. lost 59,000 construction jobs in May. Feel that stimulus!

And then there's this graphic showing the projected job losses with the recovery plan, without the recovery plan, and the actual results: To quote Dr. Phil, "How's that working for you?"