Why would independent economists, who are not in government and not in charge of gathering or releasing statistics, be so completely incorrect? And what does it say about the Washington Post and their selection of economists?
> That is down from a revised loss of 3,000 in August. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected an increase of 45,000.
Sure, you might say "gosh, +45,000 is way off from -3000". But at the same time, you have to consider they are measuring the change in a population of millions of people. In that sense, the percent error is very tiny whether it's +45K or -3K.
Yes, utterly. having number off by an order of magnitude in the complete opposite direction tells us at best that we are in unusual times and at worst that our estimates no longer work in this job market.
> Why would independent economists, who are not in government and not in charge of gathering or releasing statistics, be so completely incorrect?
Because the situation we find ourselves in is highly unusual?
There's not much precedence for a global pandemic, a demented president, and the US shooting itself in the balls to piss off every major trading partner.
