Follow Up on Jobs Bill

I recently posted on my major issue with the Jobs bill as proposed by the president. I pointed out, among other things the overly optimistic projections on how many jobs would be created by providing supporting evidence of past downward adjustments of employment data. Today we have a piece from Alternet that provides more evidence on the matter:

To illustrate just how wide this model can be off the jobs mark, Bloomberg shows that 824,000 jobs “disappeared” after a birth/death model adjustment in February 2010. That adjustment is important because if it was known that job creation was weaker by 824,000 jobs during 2009, additional job creation efforts could have been considered. At present job creation is stagnant and we won’t know what role the birth/death model has on today’s job numbers until 2012. But if history is any guide, job creation may again be overstated.

I have been regularly pointing to the writings of Paul Craig Roberts who has been pointing out the problems with current birth/death model and how it obscures real unemployment.