Jobless claims last week rose more than expected, which really shouldn't be a surprise. The experts have been wrong about the state of the economy for months on end. They have invariably overestimated and underestimated the numbers, and the Obama Administration and the Bureau of Labor Services has been busy massaging the numbers on unemployment data to claim that the unemployment rate has gone down in recent months even though the figures reveal a quite different picture.
Jobs aren't being created - stimulus or not.
Jobs aren't being saved - stimulus or not.
49 of 50 states (and the District of Columbia) have lost jobs. In fact, the disparity between the jobs expected to be created by ARRA of 2009 (the stimulus bill aka porkfest) and the actual job situation shows that there's an actual deficit of 6.2 million jobs.
So, why do media outlets tout a drop in unemployment rates, when the situation is not improving on the job front? The unemployment rate drops those who drop out of the hunt for jobs after six months, which means that those who are frustrated with an inability to find jobs in that time are not included in unemployment figures, meaning that the actual job market shrinks. It means that there are more people looking for public assistance (and are finding that the job markets are so bad that they're running through their current public assistance and need extensions, requiring the government to pass extension of coverage).
There are several other indicators of unemployment data that the Bureau produces, and they show a far more grim picture. Thus far, we have a job-losing recovery, if you can call the current situation recovering.
There are still issues with the real estate market and while Wall Street has rebounded significantly from the lows of earlier this year, concerns remain about the health of companies that were bailed out under TARP and the automaker bailouts, the real estate market, and credit woes.
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