.

Unemployment is at its lowest level since 2007.

Home prices are back at all-time highs.

Growth is picking up. The economy expanded at a 3.2% annual rate from July through September.

Even the middle class is (finally) getting a raise in pay.

" Trump is inheriting an economy that's pretty solid," said Kevin Hassett, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, on CNBC Friday.

The "Obama economy" deserves a "B or B+" grade, says Paul Ashworth, chief economist at Capital Economics.

New Update on http://www.fornaija.com/pin/106615/

REAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: 22.5%

Exposed! How government lies with job statistics

The real unemployment rate for January 2012 is closer to 22.5 percent, not the 8.3 percent reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert reports.

John Williams, author of the “Shadow Government Statistics” website, argues that the federal government manipulates the reporting of economic data for political purposes.

In the Feb. 3 Bureau of Labor Statistics news release, the unemployment rate was reported to have fallen 0.2 percent to 8.3 percent, from 8.5 percent in December 2011.

Williams recreates a Shadow Government Statistics alternative unemployment rate reflecting methodology that includes “long-term discouraged workers” who the Bureau of Labor Statistics (in 1994 under the Clinton administration) removed from those considered “unemployed.”

The BLS no longer considers as “unemployed” those workers without jobs who have not looked for work in the past year because they feel no jobs are available.

Williams has demonstrated that it takes an expert to truly decipher BLS unemployment statistics. For instance, in Table A-15, titled “Alternative measures of labor underutilization,” the BLS reports what is known as “U6 unemployment.” U6 unemployment includes those marginally attached to the labor force and the “under-employed,” those who have accepted part-time jobs when they are really looking for full-time employment.

While the BLS was reporting seasonally adjusted unemployment in January 2012 at only 8.3 percent, it was also reporting U6 seasonally adjusted unemployment in January 2012 was 15.1 percent.

The only measure BLS reports to the public as the official monthly unemployment rate is the seasonally adjusted U3 number.

Williams wrote that the “headline numbers” BLS reported for January 2012 were statistically manipulated and “simply not believable.”

He calculates his “Official SGS Alternative Unemployment Rate” by adding back into to the BLS U6 numbers those long-term discouraged workers who have not looked for work in the past year.

Interestingly, Williams’ “Official SGS Alternative Unemployment Rate” shows unemployment in January 2012 was 22.5 percent, a 0.1 percent increase over December 2011, whereas the BLS figures were designed to report a .8-point decline, from a seasonally adjusted U3 rate of 9.1 percent in January 2011 to a seasonally adjusted 8.3 percent rate in January 2012.

For more information on the actual unemployment rate versus Obama administration statistics, readJerome Corsi’s Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” and the “Where’s the Real Birth Certificate?” e-book.