The Disappointing Non Farm Payrolls Number: An Early Christmas 'Goose' Stuffed with Baloney

The Birth-Death Model was out of normal to the high side enough to raise a comment. This is shown in the first slide. Lately the BLS statisticians had not resorted to this and had actually been running at estimates a little more to what one might expect in a business slump.

The headline number without the Birth Death model, deseasonalized, showed negative growth.

So the truth is probably that