by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
Labor Department today: People on state & federal unemployment insurance jumped to 31.5 million, worst ever.
Bureau of Labor Statistics today: 4.8 million jobs created, unemployment dropped by 3.2 million.
BLS under-reported unemployment by 13.7 million, based on data from the Labor Department. What’s happening is infuriating. Read and cringe.
Normally, the jobs report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is released on the first Friday of the month. And the unemployment claims report is released Thursday every week. But this month, the monthly jobs report was also released today because of the 4th of July weekend. And now we have this delicious situation of both reports on the same day, with the Labor Department’s unemployment insurance data – people who are actually receiving unemployment benefits under state and federal programs – calling the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survey-based report a liar. And we’ll go through them.