Summers tries to preempt potentially bad unemployment report
There’s really no other way to frame this one:
WASHINGTON, March 1 (Reuters) – White House economic adviser Larry Summers said on Monday winter blizzards were likely to distort U.S. February jobless figures, which are due to be released on Friday.
“The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics. So it’s going to be very important … to look past whatever the next figures are to gauge the underlying trends,” Summers said in an interview with CNBC, according to a transcript.
Like I’ve said before, watch the average number of unemployment claims week over week for a clearer picture, and there’s a possibility that unemployment may be revised downward.
But seriously, there’s also the chance that this could be an ugly report. Maybe not enough to push the unemployment rate over 10%, but still ugly.
The reality is that if they saw anything positive coming from this report, they’d say nothing at all.
Who’s talking…