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Eric Bolling and the Fox & Friends hosts put on their tinfoil hats this morning as they sniffed around for the evil Obama re-election plot they felt certain was lurking behind the just-released jobless numbers.

A Fox News Alert announced that the jobless numbers rose to 439,000, when the estimate had been 375,000. Brian Kilmeade set the tone early by saying, “Wow! Are you kidding? …Oh, my goodness!”

Steve Doocy gave the tinfoil signal by saying to Bolling, “You have been suspicious of the numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics before.“

Bolling paused dramatically, before saying, “Alright, let me try not to get myself into too much trouble. This is the first week after the election.”

“That’s the first thing everyone’s gonna think about,” Gretchen Carlson said supportively.

Bolling continued, “Does anyone find it odd that the weeks leading into the election – (jobless numbers) going down, the number went towards 350, and now the first week after, first full week after 439?”

Kilmeade added, “Everyone finds it odd. I appreciate your parsing your words.”

Actually, not everyone finds it odd. In a report full of facts and devoid of inflammatory speculation, Reuters noted the devastating impact of Hurricane Sandy on the economic statistics.

“Stepping back from the storm distortions, the economy is growing at about 2 percent,” said Ryan Sweet, senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pa. “We will likely see a step back in job growth” because of the storm, he added. “The economy is just muddling along.”

… The economic impact of the storm is likely to be temporary. …Economists say the storm could shave as much as half a percentage point from economic growth in the last three months of the year, but should be made up early next year.

But without offering any rebuttal to the expert analysis or providing any grounds for concluding something sinister was afoot, Bolling continued suggesting Obama had somehow cooked the numbers during his re-election campaign to make the economy look better than it really is:

I’m saying there’s going to be an explanation… They blame weather for employment numbers, they blame weather for jobless claims numbers, they’ve blamed weather for retail sales numbers. Something is going to come out here because that doesn’t make sense. That number’s just blaring, saying, “Hello, hello! Something’s wrong with this number!” Unless it’s catch up. You know, if it’s catch up, I have a real problem. That means that the numbers that were looking so good over the last few weeks were caught up today. We’ll do a little more digging.

In other words, none of them had a single piece of evidence to back up their conspiracy theory.

Awfully optimistic, aren't they? I hope they're right:

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Fewer Americans than anticipated filed claims for unemployment benefits last week, pointing to an improvement in the labor market that will help sustain economic growth next year.

Initial jobless claims fell by 22,000 to 432,000 in the week ended Dec. 26, the lowest level since July 2008, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The number of people receiving unemployment insurance fell in the prior week to 4.98 million, and those receiving extended benefits jumped.

Companies are retaining staff as sales improve and production picks up. Gains in consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy, may encourage more hiring in coming months, helping to bolster the rebound from the worst recession since the 1930s.

“It’s boding well for outright job growth,” said Stephen Gallagher, chief U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York, who forecast claims would drop to 430,000. “It seems that some of the layoffs that took place in the early part of the year were excessive.”

Let's see: No new jobs, benefit extensions screwed up and Christmas is coming. You'd think the administration and Congress would be doing something about this, but you'd have better luck asking Underdog:

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits held at a 10-month low last week, a sign firings are letting up as the economy recovers.

Initial jobless claims were unchanged at 505,000 in the week ended Nov. 14, in line with the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The number of people collecting unemployment insurance dropped in the prior week, while those getting extended payments jumped.

The loss of 7.3 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, the biggest drop of any postwar economic slump, makes an acceleration in firings less likely as consumers begin to spend. A rebound in hiring may take longer to develop as companies have ample room to boost hours for current employees before taking on additional staff.

“The labor market is improving, but at a glacial pace,” said Tom Porcelli, a senior economist at RBC Capital Markets in New York, who had forecast claims would fall to 503,000. “People are having a hard time finding a job as companies remain wary of the economic recovery. We expect it will be a jobless recovery.”

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I have to say: While this program sounds good, what jobs, exactly, should we be retraining for? We can't all be nurses, and IT jobs keep getting sent overseas. I've been hearing this for 30 years now, and the right job market continues to be a moving target.

In the meantime, I get turned down for jobs because they think I'm "overqualified" - and I don't even have a college degree! What good will more training do for someone like me?

On Thursday, the Labor Department said weekly new jobless claims fell to 601,000, a 14-week low and much better than the jump to 635,000 that analysts expected.

However, the overall jobs situation remains tough. The 8.9 percent jobless rate is the highest since the fall of 1983; that's when the country was recovering from a severe recession that drove unemployment past 10 percent.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama is expected to outline steps Friday to help the unemployed pursue education and training, and keep their unemployment benefits, too.

Currently, people who are out of work and want to go back to school have to give up their monthly unemployment check. And if they decide to return to school, they often don't qualify for federal grants because eligibility is based upon the previous year's income.

The president was announcing the new measures hours after the government releases its April unemployment report. The national unemployment rate stands at a 25-year high of 8.5 percent, and many analysts expect it to climb to 8.9 percent.

Under the measures Mr. Obama was scheduled to outline, according to the White House:

* The Labor Department will encourage states to update rules during economic downturns so that the unemployed can enroll in community colleges and other education or training programs without giving up their benefits. States generally require people who collect unemployment to be actively looking for work, which can make it difficult to sign up for school or job training. Going to school will satisfy the requirement that they be actively seeking new employment.

* The Education Department will encourage colleges to increase financial aid packages for the unemployed. Colleges can consider an unemployed worker's situation and make them eligible for Pell Grants, which help low-income students afford college, and other aid. An unemployed person could get a Pell Grant and use it to pay for education or job training without giving up unemployment benefits. Beginning in July, the maximum Pell Grant will be boosted by $500, to $5,350.

"Our unemployment insurance system should no longer be a safety net, but a stepping-stone to a new future," Mr. Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery Friday. "It should offer folks educational opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have" and give them skills they need to "get ahead when the economy comes back."

Mr. Obama has directed Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to implement the changes. Both departments also have launched a new Web site, http://www.opportunity.gov, to help get the word out to the public.

States also will send letters to every unemployment recipient describing available training opportunities and financial support.

Who's been predicting a second-half recovery? Clearly, we're looking at least another year of economic pain:

Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- First-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits last week rose more than forecast, signaling companies stepped up the pace of firings at the start of the year.

Initial jobless claims jumped by 54,000 to 524,000 in the week that ended Jan. 10, from a revised 470,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The total number of people collecting benefits decreased from a 26-year high.

The worst holiday sales season in at least four decades and the lack of credit will probably prompt even more payroll reductions in coming weeks and months. President-elect Barack Obama, who takes office next week, has proposed a stimulus plan aimed at saving or creating up to 4 million jobs.

“We’ve had consistent numbers that are worse than expectations,” Dan North, chief U.S. economist at Euler Hermes ACI in Owings Mills, Maryland, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “That kind of tells you that the recession seems to be accelerating just a little bit and puts the forecast of a second-half recovery at risk.”

Another Labor report showed wholesale prices fell 1.9 percent in December and were down 0.9 percent for all of 2008. Last year’s drop was the largest since 2001.

It kills me when I see hopeful headlines like this: 'Jobless claims at lowest level since January'. That's because the vast majority of those in the media class don't understand how the unemployment system works - they've never had an extended experience with it.

When I see a headline like this, I think about a few things the headline writer probably didn't. The first one is, I automatically assume the figure will be revised upward next week, just like it's been every other time it's been unexpectedly low.

The second thing? Having lived through the last eight years of what the corporate media kept insisting was an economic "recovery," I'm familiar with one little sandtrap your chattering classes may have missed: If you didn't work steadily enough - that is, your previous employment or just-terminated employment didn't last long enough to cover the required "base year" fiscal quarters, you're not eligible for unemployment checks, and you probably didn't even bother to file a claim. It's happened to me, and I'm sure it's happening all over the country:

WASHINGTON - The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless aid unexpectedly fell by 34,000 last week, sinking to the lowest level since late January, new Labor Department data showed on Thursday.

At the same time, a four-week average of new claims declined for a fourth straight week.

Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits dropped to a seasonally adjusted 601,000 in the week ended May 2 from a revised 635,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast 635,000 new claims versus a previously reported count of 631,000 the week before.

Now, let's compare our patchwork system of state unemployment compensation requirements (I think in Texas you can get four weeks) to Europe's:

In Germany, losing his factory job didn't stop Alfred Butt from taking a Mediterranean vacation this winter. Thanks to generous jobless benefits, being out of work "hasn't changed my life that much," Mr. Butt says.

In the U.S., Dylan DeRoberts lost similar work -- but there's no seaside getaway for him. Instead, he's giving up life's little pleasures, like riding his snowmobile, because he lost his insurance, too. "I've learned to live at a new level," Mr. DeRoberts says.

Unemployment is taking a very different human toll on opposite sides of the Atlantic, which helps explain why Europe and the U.S. can't agree on how to attack the global recession. The U.S. is spending hundreds of billions of dollars -- including increased assistance to the unemployed -- to prop up the economy, and wants Europe to follow suit. But most of Western Europe already has a strong, if costly, social safety net, so governments feel less pressure to spend their way out of trouble.

The irony is that for years, Europe tried to rein in its own worker protections -- long considered a drag on growth in good times -- to emulate the faster-growing U.S. economy. Now the U.S. is moving toward a more European system.

The differing U.S. and European approaches toward worker protections can influence recovery prospects. Unemployment is similarly high, above 8% and rising, both in the U.S. and among the 16 European countries that use the euro currency. But Europe's high payroll taxes, along with restrictions on when and how companies can lay off workers, make employers slower to rehire when a recession ends.

That's one reason why economists expect the U.S. to stabilize faster than Europe. Last month the International Monetary Fund predicted that the euro-zone economy will keep shrinking next year, whereas the U.S. should bottom out by then.

Of course, this being the Wall Street Journal, the fact that so many unemployed U.S. citizens are now living in tents is mere collateral damage, and not worthy of comment. The falling salaries on Wall Street, on the other hand, are of grave concern to the people who matter!

For Mr. Butt, losing his job as a raw-materials buyer for a German auto-parts maker was a serious blow. But state benefits will replace the bulk of his salary until May 2010. And he still has full medical insurance under Germany's universal system.

Mr. DeRoberts, who lost his job at a Chrysler assembly plant in Belvidere, Ill., near Rockford, last year, saw his medical benefits expire several months later. He says he can't afford to pay the premiums on his own.

"It's scary being without insurance," Mr. DeRoberts says, but adds: "What do I give up? Food?"

Compare and contrast, people. Compare and contrast, and raise hell every time your elected representatives put the needs of corporations above the needs of working people.