My challenge to the BLS truthers

. - by New deal democrat

Sadly but predictably, following this morning's employment report, a nest of non-believers has come crawling out of the woodwork to claim that the particularly good household suvery report of over 800,000 job added to the labor force is a pro-Obama government conspiracy.

Well, I have a challenge for the conspiracy theorists. In the last three months, the establishment survey (from which we get the payrolls number) showed growth of 437,000 jobs. The smaller and more volatile household survey, conducted by an entirely different government agency (the census bureau) showed growth of 559,000 jobs. In short, averaged over three months, the two surveys were rather close.

Why the big one month difference? Because, as I said, the household survey is much more volatile. In July and August combined, the household survey showed a loss of -314,000 jobs, while the establishment survey showed a gain of over 200,000 jobs.

So here is my challenge. Since the two surveys averaged out similarly over the three month period, it must have been true that the household survey numbers in July and August were equally cooked. If you were intellectually honest, surely you wrote about those phony numbers too. Didn't you?

Because otherwise, I have no choice but to conclude that you are an intellectually dishonest shill.