On radio, Reagan raps reports of jobless rate

President Reagan, responding to the announcement of record US unemployment figures, said both the jobless rate and high interest rates would drop if Congress acted quickly to approve his Republican-backed federal budget.

Mr. Reagan criticized media reporting of the new figures, saying that while the seasonally adjusted jobless figure rose from 9.0 percent to 9.4 percent, or 10.3 million people, the media largely ignored the seasonally unadjusted figure which showed there were 400,000 more people working in April than the previous month and 300,000 fewer unemployed. Adjusted figures reflect unemployment in the same month in previous years, taking into account seasonal factors such as part time workers and weather, whereas unadjusted figures simply indicate the raw number of people out of work. Related story, page 3.