"WASHINGTON – The number of newly laid-off workers requesting unemployment benefits slipped last week, the latest sign the employment picture is slowly brightening."



"And, "the labor market is still very iffy," added Boockvar of an early report from the U.S. Labor Department, which reported the count of Americans filing first-time jobless claims declined for a second week, while the four-week moving average of claims increased to 475,500."



For more than six years now, I have done more than any other person to DOCUMENT the utter dishonesty and "journalistic" crimes of the despicable Associated Press--pointing out that you should SHUN "news" outlets, such as AOL and Yahoo "News", who use the despicable AP as the source of most of their featured stories. While I have done this pretty much in obscurity, I have done it IN DETAIL--citing dishonest AP story after dishonest AP story. And the AP keeps giving me more examples--worse examples--of how the AP is NOT a "news" organization, but a propaganda organization. See the two quotes above.



The first quote is from the AP story Thursday morning on last week's jobless claims numbers--the number of new unemployment claims of people who have lost their jobs recently and are filing a new unemployment claim because of that newly lost job. Notice how the AP LEAD (for it was the "lead") paragraph) violates every "journalistic" principle. It contains almost no FACTS, but merely propaganda (AP opinion). Contrast that with the more neutral second quote from MarketWatch (still a mainstream media source, but a financial site that has to be more accurate if they are to have ANY credibility in the financial community). The Marketwatch quote--of about equal length and also representing essentially the lead/summary as to this subject) is both more "neutral" (accurate) AND contains some actual FACTS.



What are the facts (some of which you would get LATER in the AP story, after the propaganda)? Jobless claims essentially STAYED THE SAME--declining 6,000 to 462,000, That is a meaningless "drop"--not a "sign" of anything except a continuing weak labor market (as stated by Market Watch). . That is because a change of 6,000 (in either direction) is within the MARGIN OF ERROR for this number. Indeed, the weekly number is always REVISED the nest week--sometimes more than 5,000.



More significantly, Marketwatch correctly noted that the four week "moving average" INCREASED to 475,000 (near the four month high). Since the weekly number is so volatile--bouncing up and down--the four week average is looked upon as the more reliable "trend" number. Indeed, the 5,000 "drop" in the one week number represented the WRONG "trend". Not only did the four week average go UP, but but last week's number dropped 29,000. For you mathematically challenged, 29,000 is more than 6,000. In other words, the "improvement" DECELERATED to only one fifth of the previous week. Now the dishonest, despicable AP knows about this, because it has previously used the "average" as the better indication of the "trend" when the weekly number has gone up, but the average has declined (the opposite of this week's situation). It gets worse fir the dishonest hypocrites of the AP.



The numbers show that the labor market has DETERIORATED (not "strengthened") in the past four months. And this is NOT a matter of "opinion", but objective fact. Three to four months ago, the weekly number fell to 435,000 or so. Even the four week average fell to near 440,000. Notice how the numbers have WORSENED since then. The four week average has INCREASED by some 35,000--meaning 35,000 extra people losing their jobs EACH WEEK.



How can all of this be so? Easy. The INCREASES in unemployment claims have dominated the decreases, even though the weekly numbers have bounced around. For example, take the last four weeks. The numbers are about as follows: INCREASE of 33,000; INCREASE of 22,000 (making 55,000 extra lost jobs in two weeks); 29,000 DECREASE; and now a 5,000 DECREASE. You can see how the increases have exceeded the decreases, meaning that the four week average INCREASED.



The AP says that this is the "latest sign that the employment picture is slowly brightening". That is objectively FALSE. It is a LIE--as despicable LIE. This week's number actually could be said to show that the employment picture is slowly GETTING WORSE. However, the deterioration is small enough, and uneven enough--even though it has continued for abut 4 months as to the jobless claims number--that it is probably more accurate to say that this number shows that the employment picture is NOT IMPROVING (at all).



Or, as MarketWatch put it, this week's jobless claims number shows that the labor market continues "weak"--with NO current "sign" of "brightening"
.


Q.E.D.: The despicable AP is composed of dishonest hypocrites/propagandists rather than "journalists".