The headline number for the CPI, for example, has been negative for the past three months.
Romney will also argue that the unemployment rate is, in fact, much higher than the headline number.
Also potentially tasty meat for bearish traders from the jobs report is the headline number of 103, 000 jobs created in nonfarm employment.
While that headline number seems impressive, the critical question is whether these funds are reaching the small Main Street businesses that need them.
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Analysts were expecting the headline number to increase by a slower 0.1%, according to Bloomberg, showing that prices are indeed running up higher than expected.
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Removing the inventory buildup left real final sales up at only a 1.1 percent annual rate, well below the satisfyingly round headline number of three percent.
When applied to vehicles, the headline number is that 13.6 million vehicles were sold in China last year, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.
So, while the headline number will get the press and will be treated as a downgrade, one could argue that it was actually a tad stronger than the earlier estimate.
Turning to the manufacturing sector, industrial production notched higher a second solid month in a row in December, though the headline number of 0.3% was deceptively low, thanks to weak production at utilities.
The private sector created only 41, 000 jobs, but still the headline unemployment number fell to 9.7% and the U6 number fell to 16.6%, which some may argue is a silver lining for consumer confidence.
Real final sales in the third quarter were up 3.2 percent, above the headline real GDP number of 1.8 percent.
Journalists, smelling a sensational headline, promoted that number, despite that fact that it is not really the most accurate representation of the economics of the underlying business.
If these cases are discounted from the 2000 headline figures, the actual number of applicants accepted at the first hurdle rises from 22% to 31%.
It accuses the Tories of lowering headline unemployment (based on the number of people claiming out-of-work benefits) merely by forcing people off benefits.
The big gap between the headline and effective marginal tax rates reflects the large number of allowances given to firms for doing particular activities, such as research and development.
"Brutal and declamatory, these brooding and disquieting pictures have been created from the sorting and classification by subject of nearly 4, 000 newspaper headline posters, stolen by the artists over a number of years, " wrote Michael Bracewell, a British writer and novelist, in the show's catalogue.
Just ask for some news and Glass will deliver a headline, a byline, an accompanying image and the number of hours since the article in question was posted.
But after weeks of controversy about flags and national identity, politicians' claims about Catholic unionism, and a census showing a growing number identifying themselves as Northern Irish, what lies behind that headline figure in the Spotlight opinion poll is particularly revealing.
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While the headline unemployment rate was unchanged in April, the underlying trend is improving, with the number of people in work climbing for the fifth consecutive month to 63.5 million.
While the headline rate of unemployment has fallen in the each of the last seven months, Labour says the number of long-term jobless is nearly 150% higher than in late 2010.
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