A nearly daily complaint I have about financial media is that they don’t get into the detail about the data. They simply report the headline. For example about a month ago Bloomberg lead with the following…..
“June 26 (Bloomberg) — Consumer spending rose for the first time in three months in May as incomes jumped by the most in a year, a sign that government efforts to revive the economy may be starting to pay off.”
It was all due to a one of tax credit.
“Personal current transfer receipts increased $162.6 billion in May, compared with an increase of $59.1 billion in April. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provides for one-time payments of $250 to eligible individuals receiving social security, supplemental security income, veterans benefits, and railroad retirement benefits. These benefits boosted the level of personal current transfer receipts by $157.6 billions at an annual rate in May. “
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/pi/pinewsrelease.htm
but once in a while they get something close….
like with the Reuters storythat job hunters take summer off…although they needed an explanation of why 247,000 people lost their jobs and the unemployment rate went down from 9.5% to 9.4%. At least they didn’t simply report a drop in unemployment. That said, saying that this is driven by the unemployed taking a vacationing is some what deceiving. The labor force dropped by 422k which could be true (and likely is to a degree) that the unemployed are discourage but it is more likely a statistical fluke and that the labor force will jump up next month….which they will then attribute to coming off summer break.
