Thread by @pbump

The jobs report had good news, with the number of people working continuing to head back upward.

But there’s a catch.

One might expect a month to be measured from start to finish, between the dark colored bars below.
(1/)
washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…

But as you may have heard, that’s not how jobs are measured. They’re measured by looking at people who worked on the pay period including the 12th — the dark bars below.
(2/)

That makes a big difference this month in particular as those graphs suggest. The difference in new coronavirus infections month to month in June is very different measured 12th-to-12th or 1st-to-1st.
(3/)

And since new infections and economic activity are inversely proportional, that suggests that the jobs report may have been too optimistic in the trend it suggested.
(4/)
washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…

Trump, though, was eager to celebrate what he presented as unalloyed good news — new economic records in fact.

Ignoring the massive asterisk casting a shadow over the whole thing.
(5/5)
washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…