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October 24, 2011

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So glad I found your blog, Jon. Sad news about Goldstein and Here and Now. I just donated to KJZZ and dare say I'll think hard about doing so next year. I've been grumpy ever since they changed the programming last time and seem to run more BBC feed than anything - not that I don't care about Uzbekistan, but Phoenix matters to me more. Thanks for the book recommendations; they'll be on my must-buy list. One big reason the media is so weak here, I think, is the populace itself is so apathetic. They don't vote, can't name their representatives in government and don't want to read any "bad news." They want to read about celebrities and sports, and don't want to be bothered with boring, icky politics. Great to see you are still contributing to the Phoenix voice from afar; I will bookmark your blog.

Soon, US Army troops and the National Guard will be shooting Americans who are starving and trying to get food. There will be food riots and Americans are going to be killed by their own Army.

This charade isn't going to last much longer. If the Republicans win in 2012, Food Stamps will be cut, and Americans will be told to get a job or starve. Since there are no jobs, and never will be, the only choice is to starve.

Bob Robb writes absolutely stupid garbage and the AZ Republic is a joke, but it won't matter much longer. It is going to be hard to claim that "everything is fine" when Americans are being gunned down in the street by the National Guard. There are NO JOBS, and the Republicans will make sure that it gets worse. The Republicans want slave labor. They want us to work for the privilege of starving to death on the job.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/business/media/why-not-occupy-newsrooms.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB

The decline of journalism is inevitably interwoven with the decline of institutional confidence, civic consciousness, and political moderation. What we have now in metro Phoenix is a warning what happens when the city can no longer reform and reinvent itself. First, it becomes static, and then sclerotic. Finally it becomes vile with scapegoating and nihilism. We got here faster than most but the national trend is equally dire. You wonder how anti-empirical political zealots have captured one of our two major political parties? Look no further than Phoenix.

When I was a kid, the power structure was smug, self-congratulating, and very conservative. But it was also hard-working and involved. It was boosterish without being chronically self-deluding. And pragmatism was a greater virtue than ideology. It was in the 1990s that I first noticed the cracks. Maybe it was the election of flim-flam Fife. Maybe it was the ascent of Arpaio. Or maybe it was the power vacuum increasingly filled by right-wing talk radio. We were no longer one city, one project, and one story. Rather, we fragmented into various pieces that no longer fit together. And instead of finding common ground in the middle, we built fortresses on the flanks. The right flank, primarily.

The bitter and delusional cohabit in order to birth cheap solutions. Many are insanely cruel - mass deportations and such. But others are cunningly ingenious. We pass draconian laws at the behest of the private prison industry. We cut taxes and then the safety net. We gut education and turn our backs on social mobility. We deny environmental exigencies and entrust the future to vandals and pillagers. The future is getting to be as dark as a Michael Savage rant.

Mr. Talton: Meanwhile "Everything's fine!"

Yes indeed. Thank god Phoenicians have men of science like Pearce and Flake to assure them that those 100 degree days in October aren't caused by global warming. The only way things could possibly be better is if our good old boys could figure out a way to defund those lying climate scientists...

And while they are at it maybe they could also defund all that paleo-evolutionary bunkum. Phoenicians don't like what those lying bastards are saying about altruism. Particularly that nonsense assertion that groups that share amongst themselves outcompete groups that practice selfishness. That's not science. That is liberalism crap dressed up as science...

And hey what about those stem cell boffins who are trying to cure paralysis? That sin against God has got to go too.

Other than those small complaints of mine, Jon is correct: Everything's fine! A little unseasonably hot. But fine...

Monday's Republic editorial predicted a resurgence in west valley real estate, indicating (to me) that the sprawlmeisters were again ready to get out their tractors to create "master planned communities" way out west. They'd picked up a few splinters in the bleachers of the booster section but weren't daunted by those naysayers. No siree, life in the wide open spaces is what the desert is all about!

Jeez Louise !

We have a new person post on the blog and you guys are doing your best to scare the hell out of that person.

Settle down. It could be worse.

It could be raining.

"Lessons from the World's Least Sustainable City"

Quite a bold scoping! Apparently, Prof. Ross has never visted or heard of Guangzhou, Mexico City, Lagos, or a host of other of the world's unsustainable cities.

Though, we lead the pack for the dubious title of the United States' Least Sustainable City.

"Phoenix: We're Not Lagos!" There's a slogan to inspire.

On my last junket to Lagos I saw a muddy, rusted out, smoking diesel flat-bed with the bumper sticker: "Lagos: At least it's not Phoenix!"

It will be interesting to see the reaction to Bird on Fire. That is if anyone even reports on it or cares. Our various governments have a PR machine that touts how "green" they are. "Look!, a solar panel for parking lot shade! Look! we painted a parking lot green! We are soooo sustainable!"

Then Ross comes out, from the other side of the nation no less, with no apparent reason to "bash" Phoenix, and calls bullshit.

Will the various institutions take inventory and push for a sober, clean break from the past policies that got us here? Or, (more likely)they will circle the wagons in Phoenix's defense - only there won't even be any Indians to fend off, not even Here and Now.

The wagons will be circled and fingers pointed at more unsustainable cities in the U.S. Phoenix does get a disproportionate amount of criticism. Is Vegas, Denver, or L.A. more sustainable? I think not but it isn't as cool to point fingers at those cities. Is it truly possible that developers will be able to build in the exurbs? The new talk of West Valley development is concerning because it could actually happen. It is relatively close to downtown and in West Phoenix. It will also replace vast agricultural lands and not desert. Agriculture, as Jon has pointed out, helps to mitigate the urban heat island effect.

To live in Arizona one really must have a high tolerance for political and social ignorance. Unfortunately, unlike other parts of heartland America, Arizonans are relatively extrovert and many constantly exude the right-wing news talk rhetoric with religious zeal.

This very large segment of Arizonans does want "fair and balanced" reporting but only from the hard right perspective.

Must escape. Must not return.

A big difference between Arizona and like minded states is the manner in which the people of the state honestly see themselves.

In southern states such as Alabama and Mississippi, there is no pretense. They are racist, hard-headed, have uneducated populations and they are proud of it. The various layers of society know their place and behave accordingly.

In good ol' AZ, the population thinks of itself as new, metropolitan, enlightened, educated and living in the chosen land. They think all this because they have been fed that BS their whole lives.

Give me overt racism over covert racism anytime. At least I know where I stand.

AZrebel, I'm not so sure living with overt racism is as enlightening as you may think. I've lived in the South and understand the difference in racism that is faced in the Southern States compared to Arizona's brand.

I have trouble calling it racism and think of it more as overt xenophobia. From stories coming out of Bama since the passing of their immigration law, I expect we will soon hear about murders or beatings of Latino immigrants and farmhands from down yonder.

Clarification:

I have trouble calling it racism in Arizona and think of the problem in this state as overt xenophobia.

But then again, maybe all the whites I know who have a problem with illegal immigration and not Latinos are just being covert about their true feelings? Arizona's problem is not really racism but one of diminishing standards of living and scapegoating fuel by state legislators, senators and county sheriffs whom are stupid and some, like Pearce, truly racist.

I "discovered" Jon when hearing an interview with Steve Goldstein 2 or 3 years ago and I was so excited. Finally, someone with some sense who saw things as I did in AZ; I had wondered if I was the only sane person down there. Thanks for that Steve Goldstein! Now I've returned to the rain in Seattle and get to hear Jon regularly on the radio and read his columns in the Seattle Times. Lucky me!

GOOD NEWS from Ed Abbey

Show me a sustainable city and we'll go there in my extended-cab bio-Hummer!

I'll be back!

Mans Quest for Fire has led to self immolation.

Mr. Talton wrote:

"If ever there was a city and state that needed a reality check with serious, sophisticated reporting, discussion and commentary, it's Phoenix and Arizona. Yet how often is there reality about the economy, social crisis, ongoing depression, crazy and racist governance, water scarcity, overall sustainability, etc.? Hardly at all."

On October 20th, the Arizona Republic, citing newly released data from the Arizona Department of Administration's Office of Employment and Population Statistics, touted the addition of 26,100 net new jobs in September. The article noted that this was the first September since 2006 that Arizona private employers added more jobs than they eliminated (4,100). The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped two tenths of a percentage point, from 9.3 in August (the national rate) to 9.1 percent in September. (Not noted in the article is that the raw unemployment rate dropped fully half a percentage point, from 9.4 percent to 8.9 percent.)

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/2011/10/20/20111020arizona-unemployment-rate-down-september.html

So, has Arizona finally turned the corner?

Not quite.

The article was a trifle unclear in one or two points, so I went to the source.

http://www.workforce.az.gov/pubs/labor/PrOct11.pdf

Almost all of the net new jobs were seasonal hires in the much reviled government sector, specifically local education (19,600) and state education (5,400) Non-education local government lost 2,400 jobs. Federal lost 400 jobs. This, with the private sector addition of 4,100 jobs totals 26,100. This means that 22,000 of the net new jobs came from seasonal jobs in the government sector.

Furthermore, 3,700 of those 4,100 private sector jobs added in September were in the construction sector -- more than half of the year-over-year reported jobs gain in the construction sector (7,000). No word from the Arizona Republic whether a special project might have accounted for this startling monthly increase in construction jobs.

This, however, is merely superficial. In Arizona, the real mysteries lie submerged, like a dead hand wreathed in seaweed, waving gently in the currents.

I was curious to know whether changes in the size of the civilian labor force might have accounted for the rather large drop in the unemployment rate over a single month. It doesn't appear so, since its size is nearly static, growing by only 700.

In reviewing the Arizona Department of Administration data, I noticed that for September 2011, there was a substantial difference, of 745,400 between the size of the civilian labor force (3,160,500) and the size of nonfarm payroll employment (2,415,100). If this were all there were to Arizona employment, the unemployment rate would be 23.6 percent.

However, it isn't. There is a gap between the size of the civilian labor force and "total employment" (2,878,800) of 281,700 -- which is also the "unemployment" number for September. By subtracting the number of unemployed from the difference between the labor force and nonfarm payroll employment, we get 463,700 which is clearly the number of the state's employed who do not fall under the rubric of "nonfarm payroll employment", be they farm labor or non-farm non-payroll employment.

It struck me that this residue (which I shall call the "mystery category") had a great deal of fudge-factor potential, since by inflating its size the state's unemployment rate might be understated, especially since either farm labor or non-farm non-payroll employment might be more easily, and more unverifiably, exaggerated, than non-farm payroll employment (the latter being what most everyone refers to when talking about jobs in Arizona).

So, I checked the same data for September 2007 (same month but before the recession). There, I found:

Sept. 07 Civilian labor force = 3054.8
Sept. 07 Total employment = 2948.8
Sept. 07 Nonfarm payroll employment = 2737.0

http://www.workforce.az.gov/pubs/labor/prOct2007.pdf

Mystery Category employment = total employment - nonfarm payroll employment = 211,800

Now, bear in mind that from the start of the recession in December 2007, Arizona lost nearly 300,000 net non-farm payroll jobs before it finally started gaining them back just this year, in small numbers.

Yet, apparently, employment in the Mystery Category climbed an amazing 463,700 - 211,800 = 251,000 jobs from September 2007 to September 2011 during this same period.

Who knew that Arizona had such a dynamic jobs engine at work, hidden in the background!

Seriously though. What's going on with this statistic?

(Note: almost out of online time tonight. Hope haste doesn't make waste!)

Liars figure and figures lie.

Bravo, Emil! That's the kind of sophisticated, skeptical reporting, informed by critical thinking, that's neither taught nor encouraged any longer.

Excellent analysis, Emil. Though, such critical work often leads to the working analyst's emigration from Arizona; thereby increasing Arizona's unemployment rate.

Double bravo Emil!

Great stuff. Especially coming from a guy that trusts that the TARP figures show it has "only" cost the taxpayer 19 billion. Of course everyone knows the CBO is so much more trustworthy than anything we got in AZ. The Republicans hate the CBO, right? If that's not proof what is?

And of course, everyone knows too that the CBO factored in all the trillions of dollars indirectly lost by the banksters's behavior, that is all the foreclosures and all the pensions running on empty, and all the Wall Street bonuses too...

Wall Street to blame for our woes? Nah. They "only" cost the taxpayer 19 billion. The CBO tells us so. It's right there under column A. And my, I feel better already. Now as for these pesky AZ statisticians, where did I leave my pitchfork?


Rather than go with government stats, which are suspect from the git-go, I'll always trust what my eyes and ears tell me from the situation on the ground.

By paying attention to what was really happening around me, I was able to pull all my retirement money out of the stock market before the crash.

By paying attention to what was really happening around me, I was able to sell my house at the height of the market, just a few months before everything crashed.

Am I a smart person? Nope. Never been accused of that. Do I pay attention to what the hell is going on around me? Yup.

Do I trust the government, at any level, to inform me of what they consider reality? NEVER.

The official unemployment rate is 9.1 percent??

Believe it if you want, the real one is between 15 and 20 percent.

If you had a job that paid $75,000 a year with all benefits and you are now working for $20,000 a year with no benefits, you're not employed, you're screwed.

I received an email from Jennifer Johnson, Communications Director for the Democractic Party in AZ, that Obama leads in the poll over the entire GOP field amongst likely Arizona voters. The polling was conducted by the Rocky Mountain Poll. Would it surprise anyone if Obama carried Arizona in 2012?

Just a follow-up. Note that in September 2011 total employment increased, not by the 26,100 net jobs created in the "nonfarm payroll employment" category that everybody watches, but by 15,700. Evidently that indicates a decrease of 10,400 jobs in what I termed the Mystery Category.

This seems to be consistent with the possibility of data manipulation. If the size of the Mystery Category was gradually inflated over the recession, in order to decrease the difference between the size of the civilian labor force and the size of "total employment", and prevent the unemployment rate from increasing as fast or as far as it otherwise would have, then it makes sense that at some point, post-recession, it would be necessary to gradually reduce the process; and this is most easily done during months when comparatively strong additions to payroll employment occur to offset the decrease (i.e., masking in reverse).

If inflation of the Mystery Category weren't gradually reduced this way, then by the time the state's economy recovers, the result would be an artificially low unemployment rate that would practically beg for scrutiny.

Just my two cents on this additional observation.

(P.S. Thanks for the kudos!)

koreyel,

Note that I didn't simply dismiss the Arizona employment stats because I didn't like them: I found things in the report itself that seemed to indicate problems with the rosy spin given in the Arizona Republic and elsewhere.

The TARP reports are indeed different from the little backwater of the Arizona Department of Administration. Everybody and their uncle has been scrutinizing TARP for quite some time and there are numerous reports, all highly specific and updated frequently, which analysts nationwide (many of them highly critical) have been pouring over for a long time now.

Not only the report of the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office I cited earlier, but the U.S. Treasury Department, and the Office of the Special Inspector General for TARP.

The L.A. Times describes Neil Barofsky, who was Special Inspector General of SIGTARP, as "a tough-talking former federal prosecutor, [who] frequently butted heads with Obama administration officials. He has been fiercely independent in an appointed position that is largely shielded from interference."

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/15/business/la-fi-tarp-barofsky-20110215

Treasury publishes updated TARP reports *daily*. You can find them (along with a boatload of other data and reports) here:

http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/briefing-room/reports/Pages/Home.aspx

SIGTARP reports can be found here:

http://www.sigtarp.gov/reports.shtml

The most recent report of the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office can be found here (an abstract but click on the link provided for a full-report in PDF form):

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12118

Ear to ground: Hear them footsteps? Dont look back! I appreciate all the recent in depth research but is there a way to put it into a piece that a mere simple farm boy can fathom what it all means.
Or should I just go back to my superman comic book and keep the motor home parked near the river bank where the wild berries grow and where the hares serve at the pleasure of bears.

I did recently read El Sicario a book on free trade and no holds barred capitalism.

phxSUNSfan,
I would be very surprised. In all likelihood the poll is not really informative because the Republican field hasn't been culled enough. If a 'contender' among those clowns emerges AZ will latch onto it/him/her, grudgingly maybe.

pSf,

If you would contact Jennifer Johnson and let her know I would like a bag of what ever she's smoking.

Like they used to say in the old days, Obama couldn't get elected as dog catcher anywhere in AZ.

I will vote for any living being, robot, plant or carbon based organism before I would ever vote for Obama.

Hey, cal, soleri, eclec,

coffee this Saturday?

I am in Michigan for a family illness and can't help but look at all the great cities here that couldn't adapt to the new reality of globalization. Starting back in the 70's,they surely saw the writing on the wall, but the execs just kept taking their quarterly bonuses, and the unions kept selling their members' future for no-work contracts. The cities kept whistling past the graveyard, paying off their employees and getting theirs while they still could. Which makes me ask-If cities and states with long histories of success couldn't cope with the new global economy, what chance does Phoenix have???? Instead of corruption and greed, I suspect ignorance and incompetence are the bigger problem here. Regardless,they can all be deadly.

Azrebel hows about Changing Hands Book store and the Wild Flower Cafe in Tempe?

Emil, haven't had time to look at the reports but how is civilian labor force defined in the link you gave? Is it a crude count of all working age adults? Say all those who could seek full-time employment between 16-65?

Does it take into account those not participating in the workforce because they are students, housewives, retired, etc? That mystery category may be working age adults not seeking employment for various reasons. And I would suspect that these numbers are manipulated or not entirely accurate.

Also are the self employed, unpaid domestic workers, and unpaid family members categories get added into the civilian labor force statistics?

Coffee it is. Where?

Blasted 50 rounds thru my .45 1911 last week. The zombies are going to feed on me if I don't practice more.

Emil,

You elided over my point.
Or perhaps I haven't been clear:

If the TARP accounting is correct it really doesn't matter. It's a red herring wearing blue stockings. It's pure cover for the plutocrats: "Look here you 99 percenters, we almost paid you back. We only owe you 19 billion!"

TARP accounting speaks no more to the true cost of what happened, then say, the cost of every barrel of oil includes the future cost of the carbon and smog that gets spun off. Has a barrel of oil ever included those costs? Of course not.

Does the TARP accounting include the devastation the crash has wrought to the middle class and poor? The foreclosures? The health costs resulting from blows to one's financial security? Of course not. TARP is to true account accounting what the pea is to three walnut shells and a shill. Pure hucksterism. And yes, you can bet our silver-tongued President at national debate time will bark about the fact that TARP has all almost been paid back. Ain't that grand...

In fact, all TARP accounting proves is that the government protected the assets of the rich. They weren't allow to go broke. Everyone too small "to account," was allowed to sink. And because of the way TARP accounts things: that sinking isn't even on the books. Like the cost of carbon in a barrel of oil...

Enough said. I'm moving on. And I'd like to urge everyone to read Jon's Front Page suggestion. That Frank Rich piece is too brilliant to miss. This sub-paragraph tells you everything you need to know with what ails Ameirca:

"...the congressional supercommittee charged by the president and GOP leaders to hammer out the deficit-reduction compromise they couldn’t do on their own. The Washington Post recently discovered that nearly 100 of the registered lobbyists no doubt charged with besieging the committee to protect the interests of the financial, defense, and health-care industries are former employees of its dozen members. "

Sick sick nation....


Here's a good piece of advice from one of the axis of evil nations:

http://iranchannel.org/archives/772

Sorry, Reb, but I got a hike on Saturday. Don't overcaffeinate or the terrorists will win.

eclec, Sat. at 11 am at the Urban Bean on 7th st. Afterwards, we'll go out and rescue soleri from his hike.

koreyel,

I didn't evade the point about "other costs" or about culpability (though I think that goes beyond Wall Street) -- I didn't comment on that aspect because I agreed. As, indeed, I do with your well-expressed comments above.

I will however reiterate, do you think the rest of us would really be better off if the American (and international) banking system had been allowed to collapse under the weight of its own concentrated incompetence?

Saying that this echoes the words of the banksters doesn't really address the point: even a stopped clock is right twice a day. I'm not expert enough or studied enough to have a very definite opinion about this, but I really do seriously suspect that the economy would be far, far worse off had the Fed and the Treasury done nothing. Like it or not, finance is the lifeblood of an economy, and even with intervention there were some very close and difficult months.

phxSUNsfan,

Civilian labor force is defined in the standard BLS way: it includes those who are either working or "actively looking for work". It does not include housewives performing unpaid domestic labor, nor the military, nor students not looking for work, nor the discouraged who have given up looking.

It does include the "self-employed" and I suspect that those are not included in "nonfarm payroll employment" but are part of the mystery category (nonfarm, non-payroll) as well as (I presume) farm labor.

So, the idea that the ranks of the self-employed or agricultural workers increased by 251,000 jobs from September 2007 before the recession to September 2011, while nonfarm payroll employment declined by nearly 300,000 over the same period and have only just begun slowly picking up a small number of net new jobs this year, is laughable.

I just looked at the definition of "civilian labor force" and one category that is not counted is the "self-employed".

With Arizona's large count of entrepreneurs and up-starts, this could be a portion of the mystery category. You have to look at the footnotes in the links provided to decode some of the labor force that is not including in the count.

phxSUNSfan,

First, you don't have to consider the "civilian labor force" or its definition AT ALL.

For September 2011, if you subtract nonfarm payroll employment (2,415,100) from total employment (2,878,800) you get a residue of 463,700 jobs, which is what I've whimsically termed the "mystery category" -- clearly the number of the state's employed who do not fall under the rubric of "nonfarm payroll employment", be they farm labor or non-farm non-payroll employment.

http://www.workforce.az.gov/pubs/labor/PrOct11.pdf

If you do the same thing for September 2007 (same month but before the recession) you get:

Total employment (2,948,800) - nonfarm payroll employment (2,737,000) = 211,800.

http://www.workforce.az.gov/pubs/labor/prOct2007.pdf

To see the growth in the mystery category from September 2007 to September 2011, simply subtract the second from the first: 463,700 - 211,800 = 251,900.

Now, bear in mind that from the start of the recession in December 2007, Arizona lost nearly 300,000 net non-farm payroll jobs (i.e., what everyone means by "Arizona jobs") before it finally started gaining them back just this year, in small numbers.

Yet, apparently, employment in the residue category climbed an amazing 252,000 jobs from September 2007 to September 2011 during this same period.

It simply isn't credible that self-employment was a mammoth jobs engine during the very period in which the state economy went to pot and nearly 300,000 payroll jobs were lost.

Second, everything in the "mystery category" is included in "total employment" and it is total employment as a ratio of the civilian workforce which determines the state's unemployment rate. So, if, as you claim, the self-employed are NOT part of the civilian labor force, then they are not part of the mystery category either. And if they are part of either one, they are part of both.

I meant to write "total employment" when referring to the footnote regarding the uncounted self-employed. And while that category would not make up the entirety of the "mystery category" it would include some of it. I'll try to find a reliable number for this category if I have time. Why the gap is not explained is shady.

Another correction, the footnote is for "total non-farm employment" and not "total employment."

Perhaps you mean "total nonfarm payroll employment"? Because there is no "total nonfarm employment".

It makes perfect sense that the self-employed are not included in payroll employment. I never said otherwise. I did say that they are included in "total employment" and until I see evidence contradicting that I'll stick to that.

P.S. Re the above: some documents DO refer to "total nonfarm employment". It does seem to be shorthand for "total nonfarm payroll employment" but it gets a little confusing because some of the numbers, though very close, are not identical. I think THAT difference results from differences in document age, since these stats are subject to revision, but I'm not positive.

Incidentally, I said that Arizona had lost "nearly 300,000" nonfarm payroll jobs. I was being lazy and repeating a commonly cited stat.

I decided to take a look at the data, and found the following astonishing fact:

In November 2007, just before the recession started in December, "total nonfarm payroll employment" was 2,753,500.

http://www.workforce.az.gov/pubs/labor/PrDec07.pdf

In July 2010 (the low point, I believe, for recession/post-recession numbers for this statistic), the figure was 2,349,100.

http://www.workforce.az.gov/pubs/labor/PrAug10.pdf

That's a loss of 404,400 nonfarm payroll jobs at the height of layoffs.

Just imagine what Arizona's unemployment rate would have been if this hadn't been partially offset by huge increases in jobs in the mystery category, which inflated "total employment".

For that matter, what would it be now? (I'll see about whipping up something on the latter -- shouldn't be too difficult but it's a matter of online time.)

I wrote to Jahna Berry, the Arizona Republic journalist whose article in the Business section started this, bringing the mysterious 251,000 jobs increase to her attention. Here's what she said about that:

"Your second question involves how the employment statistics are compiled. It would be best for you to contact the Department of Administration, which authors the report, to get the answers that you need."

Wow! How's that for professional curiosity?

Update:

Above, I commented on an apparent anomaly in Arizona employment statistics. The anomaly remains but the notion that Arizona was padding the numbers to decrease its unemployment rate is untenable: the survey determining those numbers is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That said, I've been plugging away trying to understand these things, and I've discovered some shocking facts about these statistics. I'm still researching and trying to comprehend things (and hopefully avoid the kind of "shoot from the hip" error I alluded to above), and I want to wait for an appropriate thread to add such comments to.

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