Well, the BLS reports a GAIN in jobs and a FALL in unemployment, which almost nobody saw coming. Maybe it's true, and the BLS is definitely doing its best, but you do have to wonder what's going on. 1/
I've been through a number of episodes over the years in which official numbers tell a story at odds with what more informal evidence suggests; often it turns out that there was something quirky (NOT fraudulent) about the official numbers. 2/
This being the Trump era, you can't completely discount the possibility that they've gotten to the BLS, but it's much more likely that the models used to produce these numbers — they aren't really raw data — have gone haywire in a time of pandemic 3/
Whatever happened, these numbers should make you more, not less, pessimistic about the economic outlook. Why? Because they will reinforce the White House inclination to do nothing and let emergency aid expire 4/ washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…
And, right on cue, a disastrous response from the usual hacks 5/
