Is a Puzzlement
UPDATE Redux: Instapundit links to 20 questions for Obama’s presser toninght. Barney’s assertion directly impacts the first two, by being able to caveat condescendingly, “Well, it’s not quite as bad as the unemployment rate implies…”
UPDATE: Found it. Run ahead to minute 7:45 and listen carefully. Then tell me what you heard.
Unless my years of working around jets have completely destroyed my ears, I just heard Barney Frank claim that the unemployment figures were distorted because of Congress’s extension of benefits. He said it was an unanticipated consequence of the extension: that more people filed for a now available benefit, which added to the total over-all number. He asked Bernanke what effect that was and the Fed chair said he recalled about .5%. Frank then asserted that “So the .5 of the 9.5%” jobless rate was therefore due to the extension of unemployment benefits.
¿Que?!?!?!?
Don’t UNEMPLOYED people apply for UNEMPLOYMENT benefits? That’s how you qualify, right? “NO job”? And those people get counted…don’t they? Is he implying that .5% of folks just left the workforce to be able to sign up…because Congress was handing out money?
WTF is he saying?
People, Politics | tree hugging sister | 
July 21, 2009 12:21 pm
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Maybe we ought to check the rolls for Barney’s name.
That is some of the most pathetic attempts at spin I’ve heard in quite a while.
I’m glad you heard what I did. Bizarre, is it not?
Stopped clocks and all that, but I think he just MIGHT be correct in the most strictly technical sense. The unemployment rate, as I understand economists define it, is the percentage of the WORKFORCE (not the total population) that is 1) not working and 2) actively seeking employment. If benefits are extended for longer, it’s possible that a greater number of people overall will be counted as a part of the total workforce.
But if their benefits have only been extended, they should already be part of the unemployed count, n’est pas?
That’s what’s got me baffled. Is he suggesting that if (ONLY) they HADN’T extended the benefits, then these poor souls would have dropped off the roles and the employment figure would be better by that percentage?
Even though the ‘unemployed’ number hadn’t truly changed for the better.
“Is he suggesting that if (ONLY) they HADN’T extended the benefits, then these poor souls would have dropped off the roles and the employment figure would be better by that percentage?”
That’s exactly what it sounds like to me. As though a half percent worth of hair splitting really matters.
I sincerely hope all of the voters who put these mopes in office are getting ulcers.