January jobs report: Payrolls up, unemployment fell to 9.0%

January jobs report: Payrolls up, unemployment fell to 9.0% - Feb. 4, 2011:
"NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Winter weather kept job seekers home and offices closed in January, getting the year off to a disappointing start, while the unemployment rate took a surprising tumble.
The economy added just 36,000 jobs in January, falling far short of expectations. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate unexpectedly sunk to 9%, down from 9.4% the month before."

Here is a real conundrum. How can less jobs being added give us a lower unemployment rate? Oh, here is how Uncle Sam does some fuzzy math.

"About 504,000 adults dropped out of the labor force in January for various reasons, bringing the unemployment rate down because they were no longer counted as unemployed.
Adding to economists' confusion, the Labor Department readjusted their calculations in January to reflect the latest Census data. So some of January's drop in the unemployment rate was due to "annual tweaking of the population data," Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist with High Frequency Economics, said in a research note."

Thats convenient. Just stop counting the half million people who stop looking for jobs, each month. Soon, the unemployment numbers will drop to zero, maybe even into negative percentages. Then "tweak" the numbers a wee bit this way and that, and viola. The people nod and ooh and ahh and vote for the same clowns for another term.

Yeah, that sounds like something to expect from D.C.