Welcome to 201k.com - A Commonwealth Perspective.

The reporting of the economic and employment numbers from both the government and the media has been so politically charged that you need an accountant to make sense of them.

Fortunately, Poor Readers, we at 201k have one:

To: editor@201k.com
From: kbo
Subject: the numbers behind the numbers
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2004

U.S. Payrolls Grew in March
At Fastest Pace in Four Years

By JOSEPH REBELLO and PHIL MCCARTY
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
April 2, 2004 8:50 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. employers in March hired workers at the fastest clip in four years, offering the brightest sign yet for the struggling labor market.

Nonfarm business payrolls grew by 308,000 jobs last month, faster than at any time since April of 2000, the Labor Department reported Friday. Still, the unemployment rate inched up a tenth of a percentage point to 5.7%. In recent months, the unemployment rate has declined mainly because people grew discouraged and stopped looking for work.

The report surpassed forecasts. Economists had expected payrolls to grow by only 120,000 jobs, and for the unemployment rate to hold steady at 5.6%, according to a survey by Dow Jones Newswires and CNBC.

If you read further on in this article, you'll see the job increases break out as follows:

services 230,000
retail 47,000
professional and business services 42,000
??? they don't say ??? 141,000
construction 71,000
government 31,000
other 6,000

Manufacturing jobs, they say, "held steady", while information jobs were down 1,000. So let's see, we have some additional construction jobs, which are relatively well-paying, an increase in gov't jobs (hmmm) and a whopping increase once again in service jobs. The trend continues.

Once again, the headline giveth but paragraph 14 taketh away. 277,000 retail and service-sector jobs--201k wonders how many of these are full-time and have benefits--147,000 jobs not described, and 31,000 new government jobs.

You want fries with that?