Okay, dig this:

Unemployment dropped from 5.2% to 5.1%.

Labor participation (working age people looking for jobs or who are employed, if I understand the statistic) rose from 66% to 66.1%.

Over the past three months, the household survey has shown job growth of over 1.3 million, and in the most recent survey, showed a jump of 376,000.

But the non-farm payroll report only showed 78,000 new jobs--a particularly weak number. According to Marketwatch, most economists expected a 186,000 job gain.

Now, somebody, reconcile those numbers for me, because they just don’t make sense. Unemployment numbers continue to be strong (even if they aren’t quote to the point of our historic lows, a rate of just over 5% is close to what many economists would consider in the range of “full employment,” and most certainly better than Germany’s 12+% and France’s 10+%), and the household survey numbers are spectacular. How is it that the non-farm payroll report shows a wildly different picture of marginal growth?

It’s enough to drive me crazy.