Today on NBC, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was interrogated by NBC host Carl Quintanilla, who asked her three separate times if the September jobs report was manipulated in order to help President Obama win reelection.
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The report was released early Friday and revealed that 5.2 million new jobs have been created in 31 months and the job rate number has fallen to 7.8 percent. This is the first time that unemployment has been under 8 percent since January 2009.
During the interview, Quintanilla played up the conservative conspiracy theory that the Bureau of Labor Statistics altered the jobs report in order to help President Obama win the election.
Here’s the conversation that transpired between Quintanilla and Solia:
Quintanilla: A lot of people do not believe the 7.8 number. They believe that somehow BLS fixed this to coincide with the election cycle. What is Labor’s response?
Solis: I’m insulted when I hear that. Because we have a very professional civil service organization, where you have top top economists at work at the BLS. They’ve been doing these calculations, these are our best trained and best skilled individuals working at the BLS. It’s really ludicrous to hear that kind of statement. […]
Quintanilla: We can go through all the talking points we do every month, Madame Secretary. Congress needs to do more, but I want to read you one tweet from Jack Welch who used to run General Electric, a man who I think most people would argue knows a bit about how economic data is created…what do you say to him?
Solis: I would say I have the highest regard for our professionals who do the calculations in the BLS. They are highly skilled economists trained in this area.
Quintanilla then ended the conversation stating that, “large sections of the country don’t believe the data.”
Watch the interview above. What do you think?
SOURCE: Think Progress
