Fox News is alone in casting a negative light on the latest weekly jobless claims update from the Department of Labor, continuing its false narrative that positive labor market developments are somehow linked to workforce dropouts amidst a weak recovery. In doing so, the network completely ignored that the average number of new unemployment claims is at its lowest point in nearly six years.

On August 8, the Department of Labor released its weekly jobless claims report. The data show a marginal week-to-week increase on jobless claims, increasing 5,000 from the previous week to 333,000 for the week ending August 3. This slight increase, less than two percent, is less than many economists had anticipated. Just one week after the weekly unemployment claims figure hit a five-year low, the rolling average for the past four weeks is at its lowest level since November 2007.

From Maddow Blog:

Other news outlets highlighted that despite a slight uptick the single week jobless figures remained near the five-year low reached last week. Most highlighted that the continued, steady decline in unemployment claims put the rolling average at its lowest point since before the recession. On the August 8 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, CNBC correspondent Kelly Evans called the news “a big beautiful report” and stated that the jobless report showed that “the pace of layoffs has slowed.”

Fox opted instead to portray the latest Department of Labor report as yet another indication that the weak economy is driving discouraged workers out of the workforce. On the August 8 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Fox Business contributor Nicole Petallides recognized that jobless claims have “been in the right direction overall,” but failed to recognize landmark achievements of the past few weeks before launching into an unsubstantiated claim about workforce participation, particularly that the labor force is “dwindling”:

Fox has a long history of downplaying positive economic news while focusing on negative spin. Completely ignoring positive employment trends is standard for the network. Just last week, Fox entirely failed to cover the Department of Labor claims report that established a new five-year low.