Horrid Job Number Coming

It snowed this month in much of the United States. And that may create unnecessary fears that a double-dip recession is upon us. Why? The Labor Department employment report to be released on March 5 will say that it is for February, but the fine print will say it is for a particular week. Both the household survey (which produces the unemployment rate) and the employer survey (which produces the job count) ask about workers in the week during which the 12th of the month fell. For February, that was the week of the 7th to the 13th. There were blizzards on the East Coast the previous weekend, and again during the week.