More Unemployment Follies at Obama's Labor Department

The Labor Department will release a report tomorrow in which they will estimate how much they undercounted the number of jobs the economy lost in the year following the passage of Obama's nearly trillion dollar deficit-financed Porkulus scheme. This follows an earlier report in which the Labor Department admitted undercounting job losses by over 900,000 jobs. Via Reuters:The economy likely shed more jobs last year than previously thought, but analysts say the undercount by the government should prove less severe than it did during depths of the recession.The Labor Department on Friday will give an initial estimate of how far off its count of employment may have been in the 12 months through March. The government admitted earlier this year that its count through March 2009 had overstated employment by 902,000 jobs.Meanwhile, Gallup released their latest unemployment figures today using their model (which does not smooth data by adjusting for seasonality) and found an unemployment rate of 10.1%, sharply higher than the previous month:Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, increased to 10.1% in September -- up sharply from 9.3% in August and 8.9% in July. Gallup goes on to predict that the government is "likely to understate" the true unemployment rate when the BLS realeases the official unemploymnmet data tomorrow morning:Much of this increase came during the second half of the month -- the unemployment rate was 9.4% in mid-September -- and therefore is unlikely to be picked up in the government's unemployment report on Friday.[...]Regardless, the sharp increase in the unemployment rate during late September does not bode well for the economy during the fourth quarter, or for holiday sales. In this regard, it is essential that the Federal Reserve and other policymakers not be misled by Friday's jobs numbers. The jobs picture could be deteriorating more rapidly than the government's job release suggests.Much of this bleak outlook can be attributed to the uncertainty Obama and his inept administration have injected into the economic picture. The fact that the Democrat majority fled DC without even bringing up a bill to maintain current tax rates only adds to this uncertainty. Gallup is correct. The official unemployment figure released by Obama's Labor Department tomorrow morning will almost certainly be less than 10.1%. But they can always correct their error after the election, right?Related: Ed Morrisey has more analysis here.

Bush tax cuts Rubio Charlie Crist Scott Brown Congressional Budget Office