Department of Labor Blames Unemployment Rise on Teenagers

You've probably heard the news by now: 49,000 jobs lost in May, unemployment up a whopping .5% (from 5.0% to 5.5%), the largest jump since 1986. Into the fray jumps our esteemed secretary of labor, Elaine Chao -- who, it is pointed out on the ShameonElaine website, is not only the wife of our beloved Senate minority leader (and DWT-fave heartthrob) Miss Mitch McConnell but the longest-serving member of the Bush regime cabinet.

Here is ShameonElaine's take on Secretary Chao's contribution to the discussion:

Elaine Chao Lays Blame for May Unemployment Jump

There’s an excuse for everything.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao issued the following statement on the May employment situation report released today:

“Today’s increase in the unemployment rate reflects the fact that unusually large numbers of students and graduates are entering the labor market.”

For those following at home, the aforementioned “May employment situation” is the largest jump in unemployment since 1986. That’s 49,000 lost jobs for a total unemployment rate of 5.5%.

But as EPI notes (via Mother Jones), Elaine’s “blame the kids” excuse doesn’t explain everything.

An increase in the youth labor force played a role in May’s unemployment spike. However, even if we take teenagers out of the data, unemployment still rises from 4.5% to 4.8%, a considerable 0.3% increase, and well above the 4.0% adult rate of one-year ago.

Elaine Chao is still in denial about America’s economic crisis. What will wake her up?

However, even this doesn't exhaust the mysteries surrounding the new unemployment figures. I have theorized before that where the Bush regime has fallen off most grievously in the gone-to-hell second term is in the quality of its lies. Americans expect a certain standard in the lies they're fed, and frankly, this effort strikes me as downright pathetic.

Strange currents have swirled around these numbers since their release -- in particular the role played by those greedy students, damn them, grasping for jobs:

* A reference to this explanation was once in, and then mysteriously out of, the online version of the NYT's story.

* There was intriguing speculation that the reference to students was not to summer jobs but to 2008's largest-in-memory surge of high school graduates, owing to a 1990 birth spike. And if you look at the wording, it could actually be that something along these lines was what was in the mind of whoever prepared Secretary Chao's remarks, and they just didn't explain it to her -- or maybe she just wasn't paying attention. (There's not much evidence to suggest that the secretary has much interest in, not to mention knowledge of, labor matters. After all, the job of the secretary of labor in Republican adminstrations is to screw labor.)

* The excellent question was asked, How on earth could students entering the job market for the summer already show up as unemployed in May?

* I myself was wondering, through this whole confusing stretch, how it happens that this student-caused surge in unemployment has caught everyone unprepared and unawares, apparently a brand-new phenomenon in A.D. 2008?

* And then our learned friend Michael Froomkin (of Discourse.net), one of our Web go-to guys for legal matters, chimed in -- in a fairly high state of dudgeon, we have to note -- with a reminder that the unemployment figures are always seasonally adjusted.

I guess what matters to America's sweethearts Elaine and Mitch is that they both have jobs, though we like to think that the clock is ticking on both of them.