You Have Got To Be Kidding: Jobless Claims Processing Snafu

Yes, that's the Reuters headline: claims processing reporting is hit by cooking the books processing snafu.  [One day later: The Wall Street Journal reports on this debacle. Two states that did not send in complete data: Nevada, California. Why does that not surprise me?]

I can't make this stuff up.

Claims dropped 31,000 in one week. LOL.  I will wait for the revision next week.

The number of new U.S. jobless claims fell sharply last week but much of the decline appeared due to technical problems in claims processing, clouding the last major reading of labor market health before the Federal Reserve meets to consider reducing its stimulus for the economy.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 31,000 to a seasonally adjusted 292,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
That was the lowest level of claims since 2006, confounding analysts' expectations for a mild increase.

Why would the timing of the last major reading of the labor market health before the Federal Reserves meets make any difference in processing claims unless someone (or someones) were massaging the books?

This is incredible. I'm not even going to post this data over at the link where I track this stuff. This is, even for me, beyond the pale.

Maybe, "they" all thought that if O'Bama lobbed missiles at Syria this past weekend, the nuclear war that would have broken out between the US and Russia (over in Syria, of course; not here in the US) would have negated all need for any processing. 

Even more interesting:

• the story did not include the usual revision from the previous week
• if you do the math, you will note that the numbers were NOT revised from last week, even though numbers were ESTIMATED for three states last week

This is incredibly bogus. The press isn't even fact-checking basic numbers any more. What a joke.

This is the same administration that reports no change in the country's debt for the past several months.

Incredible. What can possibly be easier than simply counting forms? (Claims forms.)

And they want to write fracking rules for North Dakota?