>> no, we're busy just counting jobs. >> great. the administration's tax reduction went into effect in april. the major -- one of the major parts of the stimulus bill adds about $1.10 a day to the income of individual taxpayers. what evidence is there in this report today that that measure had any positive effect on employment conditions? >> i really wouldn't be able to make a connection between the two in this report. ..

>> i wasn't providing the information to mr. hall, i was asking about the claims made by the administration and are the affecting these job numbers and his answer was very clear, no, they are not. he can't verify them. they are not justifiable, and i understand that he should not go beyond his scope of expertise in these areas that i think the time when we are seeing so much spin on the economy it's important to go to the facts. >> i don't want to carry this to much longer but mr. hall as i heard what you negative kawai just want to make sure we are clear. when these statements are made, if you don't have the information i would prefer that you say that because you can say what is happening and i don't

want it out there that you're saying you're denying the numbers when you don't have been the information. can you clarify -- go ahead and clarified. i want to make sure we are clear on this. >> we don't have the information because we are collecting the data. we are not trying to look to see where they are a fact from stimulus. >> so you don't have the unemployment data? >> we have the unemployment data. >> so when we ask about the on employment projections of the administration, 8.1%, versus the current rate of 9.4% which he said was significantly significant, your singing you didn't have that data? >> no, we have the data. that is absolutely true, the nine planned for% is different from 8.1%. >> this bin continues. >> thank you. mr. casey.

>> mr. chairman, thank you very much. i didn't plan to get into this discussion by think it is important when people are losing their jobs in record numbers that we are very clear what this hearing is about and why george of is in the bureau of labor statistics so let me just your job, correct me if i'm wrong, but your job is not to make job projections; is that correct? >> that's correct. >> your job is not to do an analysis of the impact of the stimulus legislation; is that correct? >> that's correct. >> your job is not to speculate about the impact of any administration's economic strategy; is that correct? >> that's correct. >> you are joe friday, providing facts every month with the numbers tell you; is that correct? >> that's correct. >> the rest of us can be other than joe friday. we all have different jobs.

i want to go through a couple members i tend to ask about every month first fall, there is some good news here that we see that nationally the job loss number was about -- i guess was march about 700,000, have 699 and wants to make sure we are in the right -- >> it's been revised to 652. >> okay, 652 for march. and then for apr the revised number is 504? >> yes. >> and may is 345. 652 to 504 to 345, the number is going down. it went from 8.5, to 9.4? the overall job loss number going down is good news but the bad news is the rate seems high. can you explain that or analyze that for us?

>> i would say that it's not uncommon for the two numbers to not be in exactly in sync, to not tell the same story over a month. but what typically happens is in the next month or 2i would guess that said they would reconcile, either the growth of the on the employment rate would slow down, or the job loss might pick up. but typically if they get out of sync get back into sync early quickly. >> okay. the numbers i want to ask about, which i ask i think every month, are to do by way of comparison. african-american on the employment rate went the month to month went from 15 to 14.9, so basically unchanged; is that correct? >> that's correct, although it does hide the fact the prior month increased by 1.7 percentage point so i would say it increased significantly last month and that number held this month so it's not really good news. >> but in terms of

african-american versus white, the white on employment rate is 8.6? >> actually we left that out of the numbers. that sounds correct. >> i just want to make that distinction between african-american and white on unemployment. the hispanic rate went 11%, said that is a substantial increase for one month. does that hold any significance necessarily? i know month-to-month can be misleading. >> yeah, on the of breakouts, by demographics some of the numbers move around a bit because it's not a really large sample size. so i look more for the pattern over the last few months, and i think it's still been consistent with rising unemployment rate

overall. >> okay. finally, i'm almost out of time, about a minute but in pennsylvania in march and april were numbers held steady with eight unchanged. we don't know them may number yet. i will know that probably in two weeks so fortunately the last few months have been steady but what i worry about and a lot of states are concerned about is the impact of the troubles at gm and chrysler. and how were state it's not although manufacturing jobs per say, it's really dealers and suppliers. any sense of where that's going? i know that and may i guess the number i'm seeing is 29,800 jobs lost in all the manufacturing in part supply. again i know it is not your job to period bostick eight or predict, but is there any

indication that 29,800 number is going to go up? logic would tell it will go up because we won't see the full effect of the gm and chrysler problems but do you have any on that? >> i can say this month's job loss in the automated is consistent with the last few months. it is pretty much in the same ball park. >> we are losing about 30,000 jobs in the sector. >> yes. >> thank you very much. >> mr. purchase for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. just to finish up and close things up from representative brady's line of question the 150,000 job creation figure that kristi romer cited, are those your statistics? >> know they are not. >> so they are from press reports or distribution but they are not bls statistics? so it would be unusual for you to make projections based on that number because that is not

your number? >> correct. >> let me ask you a question because we did a lot of conflicting information on this committee and in general and i know people are confused to the direction of the economy. we hear economists talk and you almost never agree on the direction we are going. we hear testimony in this committee about green chutes and the testimony about yellow weeds, tell us what it is. are we seeing the green chutes or is the landscape still pretty bare? >> i would say overall the job loss was significant. it does seem to be a moderation over the job loss of the previous six months. that, i suppose that's the good news. we still have a deteriorating labor market but it's not -- it's not falling as quickly as

it was before. i would say that's the one sign of encouragement here. >> now we have heard a lot this week of course about the government's takeover of general motors and prior to that the forced bankruptcy of chrysler corporation and now we are hearing about the dealers losing their dealerships in this process. is that going to have an affect on what we see in reports that you're going to bring to this committee over the summer months? >> it may well. typically when we hear announcements of layoffs it usually takes a few months for those to actually occurred and work their way into our data. i don't know specifically where we are in our numbers compared to the announcement. >> i know you can't comment on this but i will just tell you, not as a member of congress, but just as an american it is on usual to me, i find it unusual the government is dictating the foreclosure of automobile to

yield to the car dealerships. i find that travel and hope that affect will be moderated over the coming months but i tend to be pessimistic about that. as far as the government itself, growth of government we hear a lot about that. did government employment increase or decrease over the recent months? >> it was roughly flat. it decreased 7,000 but that is roughly flat. >> and what other -- you mentioned health care i think as an industry sector that should increases. were there any others? >> i think health care was probably the only major sector that had significant job growth. >> again i know you can't speculate but if the government takes over health care of course health care growth will be in the government sector. i just had to point that out. i'm sorry. is their anything unusual in the weather patterns over the last several weeks or a couple months that would have an impact on the

report that you've given today? >> i don't recall hearing any stories, our data collectors or any stories from industry analysts that weather was an impact. >> have there been any seasonal factors that would have an impact on these numbers that we have in front of us today? >> no, i don't -- >> we are coming off of winter you actually probably expect jobs to increase this in school people looking for jobs and the increase, so profound affect room or the other? >> these numbers are seasonally adjusted so what they are is we put them in the context of what is normal for this time of year so there is a seasonal factor. >> accounted for in the numbers? >> what about employment of are there any significant gender differences divide into five male versus female employment? >> i think the pattern has been consistent through this

recession. the job loss by men the preface is three to one, men versus women in job loss. that is actually typical of recession in fact if anything the women's job loss is a little bit higher than it normally is during recession. >> as far as hourly compensation , what have you seen as far as changes in the hourly compensation? >> well, the real pattern let me talk about nominal first. the nominal compensation wages during the expansion got up to almost four per cent and during this recession now the nominal wage growth has declined roughly around 3.1%, something like that. that is typical of recessions. >> 3.1 is positive or negative? >> positive, this is normal. since energy prices have been going down and are starting to take up the last few months has

real wage growth is primarily because the declining energy prices not because of something going on in the labour market. >> we just passed a big cap-and-trade bill. >> it is difficult because the occupations we have got are not designed to plump green jobs, that is actually something we may be able to do overtime and adjust measurements. to be honest is a similar problem as we have in the late 1990's with i.t. jobs. >> perhaps you can color code your report in the futures mckinsey the dream jobs. >> thank you. >> ms. klobuchar for five minutes. >> thank you. good to see you again, commissioner hall. i think when we were talking last month at this hearing you had went through the statistics and increases and indicated that we would continue to see this on employment and one of the things

i want to clarify on congressman braley questions is the fact i think since the start of the recession we lost something like 7 million people have lost their jobs. when will you marked the start of this recession, this economic crisis? >> obviously the mbr was chosen by the start of the recession that also coincided with the first payroll job loss. so that's been a pretty good indicator for the recession. >> so december 07 was an entire year before president obama took office; is that correct? >> that is correct. >> we are at 9.4% unemployment rate. just we talked about last month these are real people who've lost their jobs. i mentioned to you stories last time and i think we have to remember this when we use these statistics. i heard this from a woman in

minnesota who works to provide residential service for the disabled. she is a single mother of four and works two jobs sometimes not coming home until three in the morning and she told me she finds it hard to be a good mother to her children and one of the questions i had last time i want to continue is when people look at these on employment rate is not just people with no job at all but we have seen it to decrease and hours and people who would like to have -- they have a job but it's not as extensive as they like, they are not getting as many hours as they like. what are those hours this month? >> the oral telling a similar pattern in terms of a struggling labor market. the part-time economic reasons we now have 9.1 million people who are part time and would rather be full-time. that is increase of 174,000. they are not included in the on employment rate and discouraged workers we have nearly 800,000 discouraged workers and that is an increase of about almost

400,000 over the year. >> ok so when you include those workers -- when you include the discouraged workers what is the unemployment rate than? >> it goes up to 16.4%. >> and those are people that have just given up looking for a job? >> accommodation either people who are underemployed or had given up and those who actually are unemployed and still looking. >> when you see unemployed are those people that don't have as many hours as they would like? >> no it doesn't. >> so can you include those or is that too difficult? >> people working part time and want to be full-time are counted, but just the small change in the hours, that is not reflected. >> you said earlier in your testimony as we look at different sectors that we still see the manufacturing way down. wires construction? have we seen any change in that the last month?

>> we've had a little moderation in the job loss in construction. >> what was that? >> it dropped 59,000 which is a little better than it has been. 40,000 of that was nonresidential. >> okay. so, where is that now, construction, the on and plame garate? >> i don't know by industry. >> blip but this was a cross sector but also across geographic area while some states have it worse, it was clear it was going on across the united states and that is when we realized it was a year ago that this was going to be a big problem. our state now, we lag about a month but the 8.2% down to 8.1 on employment have you seen improvements in certain areas of the country in the last few months is there any kind of

trend? >> you know, i haven't, i haven't looked to see what the trend is like by state. obviously the state on employment numbers are consistent with average number so i would expect if there's been -- to hasn't been much improvement in the unemployment rate so i would expect the increase. >> well, where have you seen -- what are the most highest unemployment rates, which states and what are they? and does this lab by a month or are these the current statistics? this was lagging by months we will have them in a week or so. we have nine states now in double digits, oregon, michigan, north carolina, south carolina, nevada, rhode island, california, ohio and puerto rico all have double-digit unemployment rates right now. >> so you see them early in all

parts of the country but could it be possible it's more focused with states that have more manufacturing. although oregon i don't think it's that. >> yeah, i think there is a bit of a correlation. some of the manufacturing states started with higher unemployment rates and also had a higher rise in unemployment. >> i will save some questions for the second round. >> thank you. commissioner hall, we have got a number of constituents i am sure watching you right now. and we have got young people coming out of college, and we've got folks that have lost their jobs statistics, where would you say to them they were tried and to find a job? what kind of areas might want to look based upon what you see? what might be their best chance of getting employment?

>> it's hard for me to recommend something. >> i am not necessarily asking you to recommend i am just trying to see where the jobs are. >> during the recession the amit consistent top growth has been health care and maybe government a little bit. almost everything else has seen job loss and almost every sector now pays expected to see some job loss. so it's hard to say at least right now where there is likely to be growth. >> when i listen to your testimony, and i don't want us to have on rosy glasses because i want us to be very realistic in dealing with the lives of people and people try and to take care of their families. but when i see numbers where we were losing 600,000 plus jobs in april if the and 500 some the

last few months and then we go to 345 that seems to have some kind of significance. any time you are cutting something in half, to me that sounds a significant. do you see it that way? >> yes, i do. it is encouraging the job loss has moderated. and while this is not good news this is what we would hope to see on the way to good news. in other words this is a labor market that isn't falling as fast as it was before. >> one of the things i believe is very important in all of this recovery that we are trying to exercise here is that there must be some kind of consumer confidence. is there a connection between the overall consumer confidence and level of direction of on employment rates? >> i would say yes especially when you have large changes in consumer confidence. and by far the most important

thing in the economy is consumer spending. it's 7% of the economy. a good portion of the rest of the economy depends upon upon consumer spending so it is significant if consumer confidence starts to fall or if it is rising from levels we have seen lately. that is potentially a significant thing for the future. >> so let's do some addition here. we have got a reduction in their rate of lost jobs, and of course here recently we had in consumer confidence. you were aware of that? >> yes. >> can we expect this good news to shop and unemployment numbers the next few months? is that a reasonable expectation or is there a history of that kind of thing happening? because again, we want to give the american people inaccurate, don't want to be too rosy i just wanted to be accurate, as best

we can be that we of course. >> if consumer confidence leads to stronger consumer spending that will lead to an improvement in the labour market. >> are the effects on consumer confidence confined to households that directly experience job loss? >> no, it's not. it is -- there is a cycle when you start a recession where consumer spending goes down, they start to have job loss and the job loss means further reduction in consumer spending so there's a cycle downward. there's also a cycle that can occur upwards of consumer confidence and spending increases that slows the job loss and maybe gets the job gain and that means higher consumer spending so you have the cycle working backwards. >> so to summarize what you just said it sounds like we are moving in the right direction maybe not as fast as we would like to but at least we are

moving in the right direction. >> yes. >> and how high would -- we've got the slowdown in job loss but we've got an increase in on a planet. at what point do we -- what you think we would begin to see the unemployment comedown in relationship to the job loss? what kind of numbers which you need to see for that to be the case? >> the way i think about it is we need to see ye not job growth to match the growth in the labour force, growth in the populations so if we get the job growth of like 125,000 a month that is consistent with a constant on employment rate. so we need somewhere above that see the unemployment rate go down. >> my time is expired. mr. brady. >> thank you mr. chairman. you noted a moment ago states

with the highest unemployment rate, which brings to mind a report, a review of the stimulus spending down by usa today recently where it said basically that the states hit the hardest by the recession has received only a few of the government's first stimulus contracts, even though the new federal spending was meant to target places with economic pain has been particularly severe or view of the nearly $4 billion of contracts that have been awarded by the massive stimulus package according to this report. in review, the government has only spent about $7.42 per person in states with high unemployment. the economy is worse there. north dakota with the lowest unemployment rate has received about $26 per person, so apparently those contracts are not going to the states that need it the most. that is consistent with the review by the associated press that points out recently that

states are planning to spend 50% more per person in areas with low unemployment than areas with highest unemployment, to quote the ap the trend in the analysis runs counter to expectations raised by the president that road infrastructure money from the historic $787 billion stimulus plan with trade jobs in the areas most devastated by layoffs. does your analysis show high on employment states, the ones that are struggling most, that there has been an impact from these stimulus dollars? is their anything, again, going back to your numbers is their anything here that confirms or denies this type of analysis? >> we wouldn't be able to tell. >> the reason i ask and i do think it's important to go to the numbers is people back home really are struggling.

texas has a better economy than most but we are feeling it as well and if you talk to the retailers the arnold seeing increase in spending. there are activity and the infrastructure dollars which we should have done far greater investment than we did in squandering some of the money and stimulus. our folks back home just want to know the truth. you know, they hear the president's director of the budget peter orszag tells cnn the effects of the stimulus would be felt in weeks to months. larry summers, director of national economic council told cnn wolf platts search you'll see the effects begin almost immediately. christine romer along with vice president claiming 150,000 jobs have already been created said we will turn the corner and start adding jobs and then we've got a press secretary sitting stimulus has already started to save and create jobs. the stimulus has already started

to save and create jobs get when you look at the numbers they don't seem to bear that out. the on unemployment rate being probably the most dramatic comparison of the claims of the administration and the real economy. as you bring reports in the future is it possible for you to do deeper analysis on the effects of the stimulus or of targeting those states of the higher unemployment rate so that we can see if there is some impact that we ought to be encouraged by, and again, no spin, just facts, how do we get to the facts? >> we just aren't geared up and it's not our mission to do that sort of analysis. to be honest, we are fully adopted by counting the number of jobs month by month to. to put it in perspective we are talking 135 million payroll jobs we