The weekly jobless numbers came out this morning, and the Obama administration’s bean counters are, again, playing a shell game with the numbers. According to a Department of Labor press release issued today, “in the week ending June 16, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 387,000, a decrease of 2,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 389,000.”  

Huh? We remember that jobs number differently. According to the DOL’s press release issued one week ago today, the DOL had quoted the jobless claims at 386,000. Wouldn’t that mean that jobless claims actually increased?  

Apparently not in Obama’s world. Sometime within the past week, the Department of Labor has miraculously found 3,000 additional job claims that they forgot in its initial announcement last week. That’s incredibly convenient. Even more so – the Department of Labor never notified anyone that it was revising the number, so gullible press like the AP ran with the news that jobless claims had fallen.  

But, don’t worry, Secretary Hilda Solis and her messaging team had time to write 15 other press releases about esoteric topics like aid for unemployed Native American fishermen in Washington State.    

We’re just puzzled that the Department of Labor found the time to issue a release on program that affects a subset of a subset of a subset of the population, but not the revising of a national figure upon which millions of people nationwide depend as a barometer for the economy?  

The question then becomes: Why didn't the Department of Labor send out a press release noting the jobless claims were revised to 389,000? Why did they wait to use that new number until claims had fallen to 387,000? The AP missed the discrepancy, but the Obama administration was the one trying to pull the wool over their eyes. We'd hope the AP asks for some answers.