Unemployment: NO Improvement for 3 Months

You saw the headlines, including from the incompetents at Fox News. This last Friday's undemployment numbers supposedly showed the best unemployment numbers "in two years". That was, for all practical purposes, a LIE (just as EVERY media outlet, inclulding Fox Nes, LIES when they report ANY poll) How can I say that? Because it is true. No, I am not even referring to the "discouraged" workers, and "underemployed" people who make a mockery of the reported number. I am not even referring to possible manipulation in the numbers, which are really POLL numbers subject to manipulation, SEASONALLY ADJUSTED. In other words, these are not hard numbers. I am not even referring to the Gallup Poll showing that unemployment is 10% (although that is part of the absurdity of the headlines). As stated, the unemployment number each month represents a POLL--a "survey" of households. It is NOT a "hard number"--representing a COUNT of all of the unemplooyed. As with ALL polls, there is a "margin of error". Now look at the numbers for the past THREE MONTHS: 8.8%, 8.9%, and 9.0 % (Going from most recent backward). What jumps out at you? Right. ALL of these numbers are within the MARGIN OF ERROR of each other, without even getting into the many other issues. From a STATISTICAL point of view, the unemployment rate HAS NOT IMPROVED IN THREE MONTHS. You say that it would have been reported the same misleading way if the number--despite what I am convinced are efforts to avoid this result--hat gone UP to 9.0% (a mere .1%, just like the alleged "improvement" was a mere .1%). Don't be silly. IF the number had gone up .1%, the mainstream media WOULD have made the very point I am making: that it would be statistically insignificant. No, I don't care if Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would have shown the same bias he other way (their biasl being up front and hones, unlike the hypocrites in the mainstream media). I am not Limbaugh or Hannity. I tell it to you like it is. Yes, the number HAS improved (slightly) since it began LAST YEAR (beginning of 2010) at 9.7%. That is, it has improved unless you believe Gallup. So I would rather say that there probably has been some SMALL improvement. The weekly jobless claims numbers show some improvement. But it really is awfully minor stuff, given the real fact that this POLL of hoseholds ignores so many things. We can definitely say that the unemployment number has NOT IMPROVED over the past three months (statistically, and I do know what I am talking aoubt, after having majored in physics, with aminor in math, at New Mexico State University). By the way. Look at that headline that the unemployment number was the "best in two years". The above shows that is misleading, at best, to the extent it purports to show "steady" "progress". That is simply not true, statistically speaking. But take another look at that "two years". Notice that two years represents the OBAMA ADMINISTRATION. In other words, we are still WORSE than when Obama took over, AND worse thatn what Obama pomised for his "stimulus" bill (porkulus bill). Obam promised that--so long as Congress passed "his" bill--unemployment would not go above 8%. Instead, we have deteriorated eyond 8.8%, and STAYED THERE FOR MORE THAN TWO YEARS. The reporting on thesee numbers is absolutely terrible in the media--deliberatgely so. Meida people believe you and I are stupid. They don't believe we can handle real statistical truths and ambiguities. Well, I do thiem one better. I KNOW they--"journalists"--are stupid, and I KNOW they have no understanding of statistics (beyond a vague idea that you don't need to know the "complexitieis" behind these numbers). P.S. Nope. No proofreading or spell checking (eyesight) P.P.S. Nope. I am sorry. If you really believe a .1%move in the reported unemployment survey number is significant, then you are unworthy of being taken seriiously on ANYTHING--at least anything connected in any way with numbers. As stated, there is no difference, statistically, in a reported number of 8.8% and one of 8.9%. You are simply ignorant, or a liar, if you assert otherwise. Yes, I KNOW that the media routinely does this on OPINION POLLS> They will cite contgradictory polls, AND big margins of error (the eXPECTED error), and then report the actual number as if it were a "hard number." Depending on their mood, they may call a race a "statistical tie" (for agenda reasons). But they will, at the same time, report a drop of 2% in "approval rating" as if it is significant. LIARS. They LIE about statistics, and their meaning, each and every day. And it is because they are BOTH STUPID AND LAZ. Polls are the only way they know to "report" the news. It is one of the evisl of our time.