(RightWing.org) – Several recent figures released by the Federal Reserve indicate the emergence of a highly suspect pattern regarding the nation’s unemployment situation in March. An inexplicable flattening of the reported figures has prompted accusations that the Biden administration is cooking the books.
On April 5, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate dropped to 3.8%. Additionally, the nation’s economy has added more than 300,000 new jobs.
Acting US Labor Secretary Julie Su issued a statement later that day, noting that the jobless rate has held steady below four percent for 26 consecutive months, the longest record in more than five decades. She bragged that those statistics demonstrated the success of President Joe Biden’s stated plan to “grow the economy” from the “bottom up” and the “middle out.”
However, veteran journalist and CNBC’s economic editor Jeff Cox recently published an article explaining his opinion that “something strange” recently occurred with the reported “jobless claims numbers.” He noted that a “string of weekly reports” released by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis raised more than a few eyebrows on Wall Street.
Cox reported that the Fed’s listing for initial claims for state unemployment assistance (ICSA) remained even for most of March. A quick review of the Central Bank’s website confirmed that ICSA remained at 212,000 with no variance from March 9 to 23. The numbers rose slightly to 222,000 by March 30.
Cox wrote that achieving that level of stasis with a labor force of roughly 168 million workers was “unusual if not uncanny.” The head of Bianco Research, veteran market expert Jim Bianco, posted a statement questioning the statistical probability of the ICSA’s lack of deviation.
Additionally, on April 25, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released an advance estimate of the nation’s gross domestic product for the first quarter of 2024. The report revealed a disappointing gain of only 1.6%, compared to the increase of 3.4% in Q4 of 2023, lending some credibility to the claim that the ICSA figures aren’t consistent with the nation’s overall economy.
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