It is no secret that our painfully high unemployment rate of 9.6 percent is dragging down the popularity of President Barack Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress. So it is natural that they want to bring down the jobless rate before the November congressional elections.
But questions are being raised over whether the administration is manipulating job figures to make the employment picture appear rosier than it is - just weeks before voters cast their ballots.
A poll worker in New York City alerted John Crudele of the New York Post to a policy change by the IRS. For the first time, poll workers in this year's primaries and general election are being required to file withholding forms with the IRS, Mr. Crudele noted. The New York City Board of Elections confirmed that it was told by the IRS to make official "employees" of its roughly 36,000 very short-term poll workers.
Even though the election workers are extremely "temporary" - working only a few days - the new rule could mean hundreds of thousands of poll workers nationwide will be counted as "employees" in the very last employment report prior to the Nov. 2 general election.
That very brief increase in new "employees" could distort the figures in the employment report, making it seem that joblessness has dropped in a big way.
"[I]f the election boards in all 50 states suddenly report an influx of additional government workers, the effect on the monthly employment numbers could be very, very significant," Mr. Crudele wrote - and that "effect" would come just in time to give Democrats a desperately needed boost on Election Day.
"So is this all a coincidence or something more?" Mr. Crudele asked.
That's a good question.
We'd love to see job growth. But real job growth is accomplished by sound, free-market principles, not by federal accounting gimmicks.