Sunday, December 10, 2017

Breathless reportage, no followup: Uh-oh, here we go again!



Original 12/9/2017 post, "Breathless reportage, no followup:  The FiveThirtyEight explains why the media sucks when it comes to monthly jobs reports", starts here.

Headline from CNBC, 8/4/2017

The Jobs Report Is Overhyped. Here’s Why That’s A Problem.  (FiveThirtyEight, 12/8/2017)
The mainstream press went bananas over the BLS’s headline employment number, as it usually does when the first estimate of the data comes out, and then barely acknowledged the revisions, also standard practice. This flawed approach affects how people view the economy.

September 2017.  But wait, there's less!  Original estimate revised downward to 189,000.

October 2017.  But wait, there's less!  (Part 2).  Revised again, dropping to 138,000 -- a drop of 34% from the original August announcement.

Here's the number that everyone should focus on.



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