WASHINGTON D.C. — The nation’s top economists are reportedly in a state of profound confusion this week after the U.S. economy unexpectedly shed 92,000 jobs in February, defying their collective forecast of 60,000 new positions. Sources close to the Federal Reserve indicate that many models are now being re-evaluated, primarily to determine how the economy managed to operate without consulting them first.
“We had it all mapped out, down to the decimal point,” stated Dr. Evelyn Thorne, a senior prognosticator at the Institute for Economic Certainty, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow. “The algorithms were humming, the trend lines were trending, and then… this. It’s almost as if millions of individual decisions were made by actual people, completely disregarding our carefully constructed narratives.”
The Labor Department’s report, which also showed unemployment rising to 4.4%, has prompted an emergency summit of economic forecasters, who are rumored to be considering a new methodology that involves occasionally looking out a window. Some analysts suggest the discrepancy might be due to a healthcare strike and government hiring slowdowns, factors apparently too nuanced for the predictive power of advanced calculus.
“Perhaps we need to factor in ‘human element’ variables like ‘bad mood’ or ‘decided to learn pottery instead’,” mused one unnamed junior analyst, before being quickly escorted from the room. The Fed is expected to continue monitoring the situation from a safe distance, primarily through the lens of their increasingly bewildered spreadsheets.
