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Send e-mail to letters@gainesvilletimes.com (no attached files, please, which can contain viruses); fax to 770-532-0457; or mail to The Times, P.O. Box 838, Gainesville, GA 30503. Include full name, hometown and phone number for confirmation. They should be limited to one topic on issues of public interest and may be edited for content and length (limit of 500 words). Letters originating from other sources or those involving personal, business or legal disputes, poetry, expressions of faith or memorial tributes may be rejected. You may be limited to one letter per month, two on a single topic. Submitted items may be published in print, electronic or other forms. Letters, columns and cartoons express the opinions of the authors and not of The Times editorial board.
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The older I get, the less I understand. On Friday, the jobs report came out that said 20,000 jobs were lost last week. Earlier in the week, the revised December report claimed 1.1 million more jobs were lost than were reported in January 2009.
Confounding this, the stated unemployment rate dropped from 10.1 percent to 9.7 percent%. It was reported the drop occurred because more than 1 million former workers had stopped seeking jobs and were, therefore, no longer considered unemployed. And that is good news?
Further, the Department of Labor is now reporting that President Barack Obama’s claim of more than 1 million jobs created in 2009 didn’t happen; that this was a statistical error. What we do know is that some jobs that were reported created were not new jobs at all, simply counted that way when existing employees were given wage increases as a result of the Obama stimulus package.
I guess I just don’t understand statistics. What I do understand is that new manufacturing jobs are hard to come by. And I understand that governments from the national level to the smallest municipality are reducing jobs, a large percentage of which come from needed public safety departments.
I also understand that the Congress of the United States has just wasted an entire year without consideration of the continuing erosion of the jobs market. But then, what do I know ?
Bruce W. Hallowell
Clarkesville