Economy Sheds 23,000 Jobs Under President Newsom; Statistics Bureau Braces for Half the Country to Believe It
Revisions erase 103,000 more jobs from prior months, along with the reader's previously held opinion of revisions
Ink = the flip (fiction). Red = real Republican · Blue = real Democrat.
WASHINGTON — Federal labor data released this week showed the economy lost 23,000 jobs in July under President Newsom, where economists had predicted modest growth, prompting the traditional national ceremony in which each half of the country decides whether numbers are real.
Supporters of the administration noted that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a vast bureaucracy prone to error, citing as evidence the revisions — which subtracted another 103,000 jobs from May and June — while opponents pointed to the very same revisions as proof the situation is even worse than reported. The revisions declined to comment on being load-bearing for both arguments.
The Press archives confirm that the phrases "cooked books" and "the data is the data" have alternated owners every four-to-eight years since record-keeping began, in what economists describe as the most reliable cycle in the American economy.
"A jobs number is the only figure in mathematics whose value depends on who is president when you read it," said one statistician, who asked not to be named in either direction.
📜 The Receipts
What actually happened: New federal labor data showed the U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July when economists predicted modest growth; revisions for May and June erased another 103,000 jobs from earlier reports.