Someone please help me! I seem to have forgotten how to add.

Last week (Thur., Oct. 7) Several financial news outlets reported, and I quote, “Jobless Claims Decline Sharply.” An Associated Press article said:

The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of new people signing up for unemployment insurance benefits dropped by a seasonally adjusted 37,000 to 335,000, the lowest level since the beginning of September. In the prior three weeks, claims had gone up.

The latest snapshot of the layoffs climate was better than economists were expecting. They were expecting claims to decline to around 355,000.

So, that’s great news! Unemployment is down. Right? Well…

This week (Thurs., Oct. 14), an AP article explicitly blamed the Bush administration for the fact that jobless claims are up this week. It states:

The Labor Department said the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose by 15,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted level of 352,000…
…
[The labor market] is continuing to confound economists’ expectations.
…
The administration … argues that its policy … represents the best approach to keeping America competitive in a global economy.

However, the nation has lost 2.7 million manufacturing jobs over the past four years and some sectors vulnerable to foreign trade such as textiles have been particularly hard hit

Ooh doom and gloom. Boooo Bush! Okay. Now for my math problem:

335 + 37 = 372

So, there were about 372,000 jobless claims at the end of September, but only 335,000 the following week. And this was reported as good news. So good in fact that it was “was better than economists were expecting.” They thought it would only go down “to around 355,000.” But this week:

335 + 15 = 350

If claims went up by 15,000 this week, then there should be 350,000 jobless claims this week, but somehow 335 plus 15 is not equal to 350, it’s 352. Okay, whatever. Even if you allow for the rules of addition to be “skewed” a bit:

352 < 372 So, we are STILL better off now than we were two weeks ago. Further more: 352 < 355 Which is to say that we're better off now than even the skeptics thought we would be last week. Never the less, the AP insists that the economy is SO BAD that even economists can't understand it. Apparently, I can't understand it either. As for me and my circle of friends, just three years ago, I and most of my friends WERE unemployed and suffering badly. But somehow, magically, we all found jobs in this horrible economy. We're all employed and prospering. I just got a plump profit sharing check last week that tells me my company is doing VERY well. Hmm. Go figure.

Drudge Report today exposed an election manual distributed by the Democratic National Committee that encourages local democrats to accuse republicans of voter intimidation on election day, EVEN IF NONE EXISTS!

Here’s the complete article, and a copy of the manual.