Declining jobless numbers, sprouting lately from the Obama administration like so many spring crocuses, have left even the Chairman of the Federal Reserve puzzled over figures that are "out of sync" with the overall economy.

"[T]he combination of relatively modest GDP growth with the more substantial improvement in the labor market over the past year is something of a puzzle," Bernanke admitted to the National Association for Business Economics earlier this week.

Bernanke then proceeded to explain why unemployment figures from the administration seem so out of step with the reality most folks are experiencing. He started with a basic, but often overlooked, part of the jobless equation. "The monthly increase in payroll employment, which commands so much public attention, is a net change," he said. "It equals the number of hires during the month less the number of separations (including layoffs, quits, and other separations)[.]"

So, despite the Obamedia's attempt to paint a sunny picture heading into the November election -- note their relative inattention to Bernanke's speech -- very few new jobs are actually being created during Obama's watch. In fact, the most recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, cited by Bernanke, show that the number of people being hired has declined in 2012 -- even as Obama officials reported that unemployment figures came down.

The Obama administration was claiming jobless improvement in a job market that, according to non-Obama sources, was still grim. "American employers put the brakes on new jobs in January," according to Forbes, citing employment firm ADP. And Gallup reported in February that their surveys show new hirings dropped and that "[t]he February score matches those recorded from October through December 2011."

Early in his administration Barack Obama said that job creation was goal Number One. He promised to create 3 million new jobs during his first two years in office, a pledge which would seem laughable if his failure didn't adversely affect so many people. Even with recent improvements in jobless numbers -- caused mainly by a slowing of layoffs -- as Benanke noted, "private payroll employment remains more than 5 million jobs below its previous peak; the jobs shortfall is even larger, of course, when increases in the size of the labor force are taken into account."

It's sorta like Barack Obama is telling the American people that old joke: who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

Republicans are more conerned with how many people are working than how much they earn. Hang in there guys. If you continue your support of low-paying jobs, the Repulicans will put you all to work--without any medical insurance, of course. But you don't object to that, either, do you?

How much do people earn that aren't working?

Its much better to hold out for that high paying union GREEN JOB that Obama has been promising..

And while you type your resume with the highlights being that GED and 4 years working at dunkin donuts you can collect food stamps, get a free cell phone and play Xbox 360 24/7..

Yeah.. I can see how you think working is overrated..

Usmale, you've had your head stuck in the pile at the end of the donkey too long.

Well spoken. One of the reason's I sold my business; couldn't find people to WORK. Good wages & insurance DO NOT buy, HONESTY; GOOD WORK ETHICS & DEPENDABILITY. I tried.

I'm truly sorry when anyone loses their job or business, especially when they've done nothing to deserve it. One reason that a business fails, of course, is because it's not competitive, but there are others: not enough people with the skills to perform the work, for example. Might not it help the overall economy to improve and/or modify education in the US to tackle this problem?

Another problem that too many people are overlooking is the income of the middle class. As has been observed, middle class income is abysmal, and has been for well over a decade. If you don't have the money to puchase a needed product or service, you look for ways around it. Often times you repair an old car rather that buying a new one. Out of necessity, you do things yourself rather than paying someone else to do them for you. These things are evidence of a collapsing middle class in the US.

The bottom line is this: you don't attempt to improve your life by making things worse for others. Attempts to end of privatize Social Security and Medicare just aren't wise, and will NOT benefit anyone in the long run. You don't attempt to limit the rights of others, either. Abortion, for example, should not be controlled by government. It's a private matter, and should remain that way. You also don't mandate who people can marry. Again, that should be a private matter. I'm not gay, but I respect the right of gays to live as they choose. I'm not black, or hispanic, or Asian, either, but they deserve to have the same rights and opportunities as I.

Look, I want everyone--Democrats, Repulicans and independents--to be happy and successful, but not when that involves unnecessarily stepping on the feet of others. That's not what the US is all about. Never has beeen. Religious beliefs were never intended to be a part of our government: http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html

Let's all just try to work together, and respect each in the processs.

Where is the link to where this came from?

I need to be sure it is not from a non reliable source before I buy it.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/bernanke_obama_unemployment_numbers_out_of_sync.html
ever heard of Google?

Why Obama Reappointed Bernanke to the Fed
By MICHAEL GRUNWALD Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2009
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Before Ben Bernanke was chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, he was an ivory-tower economist who trained at Harvard and MIT, taught at Stanford and Princeton and may have learned more about the Great Depression than anyone else on the planet. One thing he knew was that he never wanted to see another one.

So when the financial markets melted down in 2008, the mild-mannered, consensus-minded, professorial ex-professor vowed to avoid the errors of omission the sluggish Fed had made in the 1930s and do everything possible to prevent the crisis from becoming a calamity. He blasted a fire hose full of dollars at the U.S. economy, exercising unprecedented powers and sidestepping the democratic process, figuring that desperate times called for desperate measures. And while the blaze hasn't been extinguished, it's starting to look like it's under control, which is why President Barack Obama reappointed Fireman Ben to a second term on Tuesday. Bernanke was at the President's side when he made the announcement and heard Obama say that Bernanke had "led the Fed through one of the worst financial crises that this nation and this world have ever faced." (Read Obama's remarks about Bernanke.)

Bernanke's is in many ways an inspiring story, a financial overlord from Main Street rather than Wall Street, from the faculty lounge rather than the corridors of power, from the realm of pragmatism and analysis rather than partisanship and ideology. He was a nice Jewish boy from small-town South Carolina who had pursued a career of scholarship; before George W. Bush appointed him to the Federal Reserve Board in 2002, his only brush with politics had been a stint on his local school board. Before the markets went haywire, he was building a reputation at the Fed as a collegial and unassuming technocrat who had none of the cult of personality that had swirled around Alan Greenspan — and he actually tried to make himself understood.

Otherwise, Bernanke mostly tried to continue Greenspan's policies, which were wildly popular at the time. But that was before the chaos, before the collapses of Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch, Fannie and Freddie, Lehman Brothers, AIG and WaMu, before Bernanke called upon decades of historical study to start dispensing money to banks and then quasi-banks and then companies that weren't banks at all. In his insider account In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke's War on the Great Panic, David Wessel details how Bernanke essentially turned himself into a fourth branch of government, exploiting a loophole in a 1932 law that gave the Fed wide latitude in "unusual and exigent circumstances" to become a virtual economic commander in chief, dropping several trillion dollars into the nation's credit jet stream without presidential or congressional input, inaugurating all kinds of unprecedented programs with obscure acronyms. His motto, Wessel writes, was "whatever it takes."

The Great Recession has not become another Great Depression — the markets have rebounded, and Bernanke declared last week that the worst of the downturn appears to be over — so Obama really had no choice but to reappoint Bernanke, even though White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers has yearned for the job. The markets like stability, and they really like Bernanke. And Obama might have done the same thing even if he did have a choice. Bernanke hasn't been flawless — he was slow to grasp the crisis and start yanking interest rates down toward zero, and market watchers will forever second-guess the decision to let Lehman go under. But overall he's been courageous and innovative and (so far) successful. And while he's fairly new to Washington, he's shown a flair for politics and p.r., doing a memorable 60 Minutes interview at the height of the crisis, providing an important vote of confidence for Obama's stimulus package and getting the theater as well as the substance right at several key congressional hearings. (Read "Bernanke Defends Fed's Actions Before Congress.")

That said, there's something a bit creepy about the megapower that's accumulating at the Fed, one of Washington's least accountable institutions. Why should the markets decide who oversees them? Haven't the markets decided enough? Bernanke may be the ideal benevolent financial despot — a nebbishy superscholar with minimal connections to Wall Street and no previous hunger for power — but the next Fed chairman may be less ideal. And Obama has proposed to give even more regulatory power to the Fed, even though it has shown little interest in the past in curbing the excesses of the markets. At the same time, any politician who meddles with the Fed gets pilloried for threatening its hallowed independence; it's like the Supreme Court, if the Supreme Court could pour trillions of dollars wherever it wanted.

The Fed chairman is often described as the second most powerful U.S. official; the main check on him is the first most powerful official's power not to reappoint him. That power won't be used this year, and it's easy to see why. But someday, a President may have to use it — no matter what the markets say.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1918422,00.html#ixzz29xFdbF

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1918422,00.html

And although I love the name of the "American Thinker" it is a right wing rag. It doesn't care about posting the truth, just anything that is anti liberal or what they believe to be liberal since most right wing people wouldn't know liberal if it hugged em.

Me too the first time someone posted an article from it, it fooled me and I went crazy thinking it was the truth...lol
haha.

yep,Benny sure doing much better in the ONION!

Republican's realize it's better to have a job and make something then not have a job and make nothing. Democrats are lazy and wont do most of the jobs that they can get because they make more money sitting at home on the couch with their hand down the front of their pants.

You can't pin laziness on a party affiliation, it's a personal trait, however, lazy does favor the dem vote with it's handouts , entitlements and stimulus.

Show me a Rep that won't take a handout when offered!

The Reps biotch about stimulus, but their Corporations live and thrive on it! Coporate welfare, stimulus, lobbying....where do you think it all comes from?

Our political system has become a 2 headed snake with a single body, both going in the same direction, and it's stupid uninformed or opinionated voters, not a party name, that continues the sham by expecting something different voting for one or the other of them, rather than a 3rd party (actually a 2nd party since those 2 are actually one party) that actually does offer us something different!

and in No Time Flat your Third Party will be part of the DC-Swamp!