Drop in Unemployment–Huh?

Not sure how this is possible, but the Labor Department reported today that the claims for unemployment benefits dropped by about 33,000 last week to approximately 342,000 claims. It doesn’t make sense, but apparently that’s the case. Analysts were wrong in predicting that it would go cup by about 3,000. Not to sound the skeptic, but in my opinion there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark here. Food prices are going up at an alarming rate, we’re in a recession, the home mortgage crisis is killing homeowners, and the financial markets are in disarray, but unemployment has gone down? I don’t think so. From experience, I do know that it often can be a depressing thing, chasing down unemployment insurance checks. In Washington, you could wait up to 8 weeks before you get an answer–and the answer could turn out to be a big fat No. Sometimes, I start to wonder if some sort of politics aren’t being played with taxpayers dollars (and employers paying into the pool of unemployment insurance funds).