When
the August U.S. unemployment numbers were released, The Wall Street Journal proclaimed "The economy creates another
1.4 million jobs, defying the pessimists."
It's not until the second paragraph of the article that they mention that the unemployment rate in August was 8.4%, only down by 1.8% versus July. And that 238,000 of those new jobs were temporary census workers. (WSJ, 2020)
With a bit more searching online you can find out that between 1948 and 2020 the average unemployment rate was 5.76%. And that in February 2020 it was 3.5%. (BLS, 2020)
Now that I have read these details from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, I am feeling a bit more pessimistic. How about you?
Have you ever encountered a misleading headline or statistic? Do you read the entire article or just the headline? If something seems off do you research it further, or just move on? Can you think of instance when knowing the context of data has changed your opinion?
What about your news sources? Who do you trust? How do you stay well informed?
(2020, September 4) The Jobs of August. wsj.com. Retrieved September 7, 2020, fromhttps://www.wsj.com/articles/the-jobs-of-august-11599260186
(2020, March 11) 19.2 percent of the unemployed had been jobless for 27 weeks or more in February 2020. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved September 7, 2020, from https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2020/19-point-2-percent-of-the-unemployed-had-been-jobless-for-27-weeks-or-more-in-february-2020.htm#:~:text=In%20February%202020%2C%20the%20unemployment,19.2%20percent%20in%20February%202020.
