GURPS - In this case I think it's The Blaze that's trying to pull the wool over people's eyes - when it comes to that Exhibit A that is, as I'm not talking about the job quality / Obama's nefarious plans point (on that, well, it is what it is - the guy's trying to sell a book). Recent employment reports have been quite good - that's not a lie, it isnt spin, it's the truth. June's report was not a disaster, that's an absolutely absurd assertion (an AAA).
In any given Employment Report, no matter how good it is on the whole - I mean actually good, not just seemingly good (though I don't mean to suggest that recent reports have been spectacular, certainly not historically) - you can always find some numbers on which to base a strained argument that it's actually bad. There are so many measures within the BLS's reporting, and so many different ways of measuring similar things, that there will always be single data points - some of which are anomalous, some of which are otherwise misleading - that seem to cut a particular way, especially if someone doesn't investigate the methodology and meaning behind the numbers. There really is a lot of information in those Employment Reports, typical news reporting only covers a tiny portion of it. And narrative peddlers typically only pay attention to the pieces which, in a given month, can be drawn out as supporting the narrative they're peddling. What makes the practices of some of them even more disingenuous is that they'll pay attention to (i.e. draw the attention of their marks to) different things from different reports - the measures that they suggest one month are important because they seem to cut a particular way will be completely ignored in other months when they seem to cut a different way. And in those months some data point which previously apparently shouldn't have been given much weight becomes what really matters. This kind of rhetoric, this kind of narrative-driven myopia, is sad and quite comical at the same time.
Back from the general to the specific at hand, here The Blaze is trying to correspond things that don't correspond to each other. They're confounding metrics that measure different things and do so in very different ways (i.e. particular measures from the Establishment Survey and particular measures from the Household Survey that don't, and aren't supposed to, line up - they're pretending that they do). Further, I think they're doing so to paint a picture that's more Munch than Rembrandt.
So anyway... to address the numbers they offered up in the piece: They're referring to measures from Table A9 of the report. In particular they're referring to measurements of (1) the number of employed people who usually work 35 plus hours per week and (2) the number of employed people who usually work less than 35 hours per week, regardless of why they work less (i.e. whether for economic or noneconomic reasons).
I'd note a few things about the part-time measure referred to here. It is different than other part-time measures that are sometimes referred to and is not the one which factors into the broadest underemployment measure (U-6). This one doesn't depend on what the person in question did in the most recent reference week, it depends on what they usually do. So it doesn't count someone that usually works full-time but didn't during this past month (i.e. during the one week in the past month that is looked at) for whatever reason. This measure does however count people who work part-time for reasons such as familial obligations, school, or semi-retirement. Such noneconomic reasons account for something like 70% of the part-timers currently in this measure.
Perhaps more important than those things though, at least when it comes to how much attention we should pay to monthly moves in these measures, is that they are part of the Household Survey. That's a sample survey. A sampling of people are interviewed and asked various questions about their employment situation. From that sampling various measures for the population at large are extrapolated. One result of this method is that measures found in the Household Survey tend to bounce around, and not necessarily as a result of actual changes over a given month in what they are trying to measure. Those measures can vibrate around reality, so to speak; looking at them month-to-month they can be noisy even when reality is quiet - or, in the alternative, not move much in a given month even when what they are trying to measure actually does. They will however, when looked at over a long enough period of time, mirror the trends found in reality and even as single data points they offer a pretty fair estimate of the actual counts they represent.
I've tried to make this point over and over, we shouldn't read too much into single month movements in Household Survey measures - whether they're good, bad or indifferent. That's especially true when they indicate an outsized move or seem anomalous relative to other aspects of the Employment Report or other information that's available. The Household Survey data is far more useful, and paints a picture that more consistently reflects reality, when it is looked at over time. It sometimes lies, even when we consider it in detail rather than just as the headline numbers, when we look at month-to-month moves; it generally tells the truth, at least when we consider and understand the details, when we look at it over 6 months or a year.
It's happened before - it wasn't too long ago as I recall - that pundits found a large spike over a month or two in the part-time numbers and raised the alarms that the sky was falling and everyone was now working part-time. Then, in the months that followed when the anomalous spike - which was most likely just a consequence of the nature of sample surveys - corrected itself (i.e. the part-time numbers came back down, even below where they had been before the spike) those same pundits somehow didn't take notice. People were left thinking the narrative they'd been sold was true, that part-time employment was climbing while full-time employment was falling. It wasn't true, the opposite was more so true - the full-time to part-time trend (which had previously been true in the wake of the recession) had stopped some time ago and had actually started to reverse.
So with all that said, let's get down to the brass tacks. Using the measures that The Blaze wants to point to, and understanding that they are from a sample survey and bounce around Tourette's-like from month to month, what do you think those measures have shown over the last year or two? How much has part-time employment gone up or down and how does that compare to how much full-time employment has? Go one step further if you want and compare the two looking only at part-time employment that's the result of economic conditions. Then let's keep an eye on what happens to these numbers over the next 3 or 6 months. If the PT keeps going up and FT down (which is not what had happened in the months previous to this last one), then there'll be something there to be concerned about.
I can give you the answers to what I just asked if you want, but maybe you want to look for yourself to see what's actually gone on. And, btw, if we decide that we just can't trust the BLS's data - fair enough. But then that would mean not putting much stock in what The Blaze is trying to make you believe (as it's based on that BLS data) nor in what many other narrative peddlers have been trying to sell.
She knows she could not hold her own. And, Tilted has been nothing but kind in trying to respond to her answers in other threads, even though I could tell he wanted to let loose on her. He is forever the gentleman. 
