OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The Biden administration regularly overestimated the number of jobs created each month over the past year by at least 1 million, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicate.
The Daily Caller reported that the “federal government in 2023 overestimated the number of jobs in the U.S. economy by an average of 105,000 per month in initial reports, equating to a cumulative monthly difference of 1.3 million.”
The Daily Caller News Foundation’s analysis of BLS data shows that there were 1,255,000 fewer jobs reported each month than previously thought.
This significant downward revision is attributed to new seasonal and census data impacting total employment estimates. Despite this, there was a noteworthy upward revision of 115,000 jobs in December, marking the only month in 2023 to see such a revision to the employment level, the outlet reported.
The agency’s data indicates that the most significant downward revision occurred in March, totaling a reduction of 266,000 jobs, followed by January with a revision of 234,000 jobs, and April with a revision of 205,000 jobs. Conversely, the smallest downward revisions were observed in November, amounting to only 2,000 jobs, followed by 11,000 jobs in October, the report said.
“Revisions are a normal part of the reporting process, but large changes, or adjustments that consistently move in the same direction, are not normal,” E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told the news outlet. “Instead, they’re indicative of something problematic with the BLS’ methodology. That can happen when market conditions change drastically enough to be outside of the assumptions used in their models.”
With the latest revisions, the average month in '23 was overestimated by 105k jobs – BLS didn't exactly hit the white… pic.twitter.com/hr5iu6XHKv
— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) February 3, 2024
The revisions are attributed, in part, to an overestimation of the number of jobs in the U.S. economy in January 2023, initially reported at 155,007,000 instead of the revised figure of 154,773,000, according to the BLS. By December, the job level had risen to a revised 157,347,000, marking an overall increase of 2,340,000 positions throughout the year.
“When the economy was rapidly deteriorating at the onset of the Great Recession, the BLS repeatedly and consistently overestimated job levels, which then had to be revised down,” Antoni told the DCNF. “The worsening economic conditions fell outside of the assumptions used by the BLS statisticians, so the estimates became inaccurate. There could be similar problems today due to fallout from the government-imposed recession in 2020 because the labor market still hasn’t recovered.”
Regardless, the most recent surveys indicate that voters trust former President Donald Trump far more with the economy than President Biden.
According to a new Bloomberg/Morning Consult survey Wisconsin poll released Wednesday morning, 94 percent of registered voters said the economy will be a “very” or “somewhat” important factor in their decision for president.
According to the poll, 32 percent of registered voters believed that the national economy was moving in the right direction, while 68 percent thought it was on the wrong track. In terms of trusting who would be better to handle the economy, 52 percent of registered voters said they would trust former President Trump more, 32 percent chose President Joe Biden, and 15 percent said neither, WISN reported.
Meanwhile, Democrats and other political opponents of Trump who were hoping to see him convicted of a crime and jailed before the November election are likely in for a big disappointment, according to a new analysis.
“Delays have piled up in federal court proceedings in the District of Columbia case about Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election and the Florida classified documents case against Trump, making it unclear whether either case will go to trial before November,” Vox reported last month.
The report noted that in the Florida case, the federal judge, Aileen Cannon, does not appear to be in any hurry to see Trump, who appointed her, put on trial. As for the D.C. case, a federal appeals court ruled this week that Trump did not have absolute immunity as president, setting up an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
