> Instead of firing the commissioner, the president should be giving the agency a raise in the form of a bigger budget. The goal should be to restore public trust in government statistics, not undermine it.
When you believe that government should not be providing many services, or doing most of what it currently does overall, why would you want to bolster trust in government statistics? Those statistics might contradict the administration, which is not a goal of the administration and its backers.
I understand why articles like this are written and why we have these conversations but it all feels like we're sane washing this administration. Any other administration (especially a Democrat) firing the head of BLS due to unsavory numbers would be a scandal on its own. Yet, we're seven months into this one with multiple corruption scandals flooding the zone. It just seems crazy that we're here justifying basic concepts of government/public service and not outright calling this out for what it is.
> but it all feels like we're sane washing this administration
This is not a defense of the admin or their actions, but if there's something we should have learned well over the past 100+ years of history, it's not to assume insanity on the part of people who disagree with you. It feels good to assume that we are so correct that anyone disagreeing with us must be insane, but it's a deeply unproductive (and often counter-productive) way to interact with people.
Personally, I think they think that places like the BLS are stacked with "deep state" people that are trying to sabotage the current administration. I think that's mostly absurd, but they don't, and without evidence either way it's a matter of opinion (I personally lean heavily on things like Hanlon's Razor and trying to gauge "likeliness" rather than assuming the best or worst). If you believe as they do, then cleaning house is not only good but necessary, so the actions aren't insane. If we don't try to (in good faith) understand their beliefs/motivations, and just assume they are just randomly pulling triggers, not only will we only further entrench partisan divides (nothing alienates somebody more than feeling they aren't being properly understood), but we hinder our own ability to predict and prepare for the future.
Exactly, it drives me insane that people are still thinking this administration is in any way acting in good faith. The argument you quote above is assuming an awful lot of good faith when this administration continually lies and violates court orders.
Hell they lied about Trumps weight and height on his physical.
Exactly. Instead of battling with their own internal departments when they show lack-luster numbers in good faith, they can just blame the "agendas" of the non-blessed private sector companies who show the same data.
Even better, they can exult the virtues of select private sector companies who show "good" "approved" data.
What? No, no conflict of interest that members of the President's immediate family happens to hold board seats in those "approved" companies.
Should point out this is not the first time the BLS came under serious fire, politically. When the Republicans regained control of the Senate in 1995, they set up a commission (Boskin commission) that said inflation had been overstated, and henceforth cut Social Security cost of living adjustments.
Cuts will continue until the statistics improve and match the desired narrative! Wish that was a /s but it's just what's happening now and happened then.
We have been seeing news reporting, media, and education private organizations knuckling under from pressure by the administration - is there any reason to believe that we would not see the same from data reporting companies
Fair point, but private organizations would at least have a financial incentive to give accurate numbers since that's they're business, if they earn a reputation of unreliability then there'd be no reason to pay them, you could just trust the government numbers for free.
Or also, all firms will say what you want to hear, like modern ratings agencies already do. Because otherwise you won't ever shop at the ones who give you bad numbers, and market pressure will turn them all into a ratings shop.
What I really would like to see is a historical trend analysis seeing whether BLS and nongovernment estimates (public or private) start to decouple about now.
If you have enough sources you presumably at least can start to make observations about which sources agree and which disagree.
Actually I presume something like this already exists, but I'm not an economist so I don't know.
(Great post/article!) I was so confused as to why you said counterpoint -- it is deep in the article, if at all.
> If the government’s jobs data is considered biased or unreliable, Wall Street will have other places to look. ADP reports figures on private payrolls, for instance. (And it also tells a bearish story: ADP showed a net loss of jobs in June, for instance.) Meanwhile, Gallup once tracked employment numbers on a weekly basis based on its large-scale surveys and could resume that effort. Or investment banks like Goldman Sachs might conclude they could have a competitive edge by tracking their own economic data.
But in the following paragraph he points out that the numbers aren't likely to be as accurate, comprehensive, or as reassuring as numbers generated by the government. Overall though it is a really good article worth a share of its own.
With the shoot the messenger management style. Will the BLS ever be trustworthy again? What happens to markets when we can't trust any government statistics.
Maybe the best move at this point is to move toward the BLS releasing all the raw data, but do not publish conclusions of their own? Then at least you have a central "unbiased" (if that's ever an actual state) agency responsible for collection, and leave it up to the more polarized outlets/statisticians/... to produce their own interpretations.
E.g. similar to Census data -- central data collection managed by govt, generalized anonymous data released for interpretation by anyone.
The BLS gathers data to support its methodology. If the methodology were biased, having access to the raw data would not solve the problem. You could always claim "BLS is ignoring X".
Was on news yesterday, not sure if will happen. But Trump now also does not trust the Census and wants to do another one. So then what happens when we can't even trust the Census? And Totals are just gamed for Congressional seats.
Yes, if the executive branch is trustworthy. We need to send a clear signal to the Republican Party that this sort of general behavior is not acceptable to Americans.
See, what they really need to do is release the politically-desired results in press releases while sending the real information using steganographic concealment in the page's logo. We must construct a Truman Show around Dear Leader for our own survival. /s
Previous users of this data will seek alternative, less precise signals elsewhere and likely use conservative, pessimistic guesstimates that will tend to be risk-adverse and not encourage expansion or investment.
I mean, they already don't. Investors aren't stupid. Half of financial analysis is converting financial metrics from GAAP to other more meaningful structures that allow for proper forecasting and comparison. They spend billions on alternative data, trying to get an edge. They take nothing at face value.
I think the government stuff is a bit of a farce. They have an incentive like any other institution. For instance, inflation metrics are tied to trillions of dollars in terms of retirement benefits or other programs that are indexed to inflation. They have a gigantic incentive to play with the numbers. And I'm 100% convinced that they do. Does anyone believe food prices went up only 28% since pre-covid? Did something go from costing $4 to $5? No, most things close to doubled. But they're able to play with the numbers changing the basket (beef getting more expensive, we'll just swap that out with Tofu!).
The basket is determined by what people actually buy, rather than what they would like to buy. And they are about two years behind, so the current basket is based on surveys done in 2023.
don't you worry, people in the public sector who want everything to be private will make sure that the BLS becomes shit enough that the private alternative will end up being appealing, we've seen that millions of times before
With this and SCOTUS neutering Humphrey’s Executor (with Federal Reserve penumbras -- for now) I'm wondering if there will be a push in the future to establish a 4th branch (call it the deep state branch) to protect what should be non-political stuff like the federal reserve and BLS statistics. Like the judiciary, nominated by President, confirmed by the senate, funded by congress, impeachable, limited executive authority, etc.
>I'm wondering if there will be a push in the future to establish a 4th branch (call it the deep state branch) to protect what should be non-political stuff like the federal reserve and BLS statistics.
Now you have four problems, as it were.
If the thesis is that the government can't be trusted to run its own affairs, then more government isn't a solution.
The actual "fourth branch" of government is supposed to be the people, either giving a shit and being engaged in their civic duty and not electing tyrants for entertainment value or to "own the libs," or else doing the other thing that Americans love to talk about doing.
If we're launching a fourth branch of government, it should be explicitly aimed at enforcing the Constitution on the government. Having the judiciary try to do that and all the other adjudication is not working.
Interestingly, this is what the EU is. After WW2 it was decided to set things up so that European countries no longer could wage war against each other. Hence starting out with coal and steel (no war without those).
In such a setup, lack of democratic oversight is not a bug but a feature. It prevents democratically elected but possibly not entirely stable governments from doing something stupid. The drawback, of course, is that it also prevents democratically elected and intensely well meaning governments from doing the right thing if the supranational entity does not wish to facilitate that right thing.
This setup works (after a fashion) for a group of small and fairly weak countries, but for a single large and powerful country like the US there simply isn’t a supranational entity powerful enough to reign it in.
We thought we already had that for a bunch of stuff. Turns out, words on paper don't matter if Congress says nothing, the Executive goes rampant, and the SCOTUS either stays suspiciously quiet or gives an approving nod and wink here and there.
Readit News
When you believe that government should not be providing many services, or doing most of what it currently does overall, why would you want to bolster trust in government statistics? Those statistics might contradict the administration, which is not a goal of the administration and its backers.
This is not a defense of the admin or their actions, but if there's something we should have learned well over the past 100+ years of history, it's not to assume insanity on the part of people who disagree with you. It feels good to assume that we are so correct that anyone disagreeing with us must be insane, but it's a deeply unproductive (and often counter-productive) way to interact with people.
Personally, I think they think that places like the BLS are stacked with "deep state" people that are trying to sabotage the current administration. I think that's mostly absurd, but they don't, and without evidence either way it's a matter of opinion (I personally lean heavily on things like Hanlon's Razor and trying to gauge "likeliness" rather than assuming the best or worst). If you believe as they do, then cleaning house is not only good but necessary, so the actions aren't insane. If we don't try to (in good faith) understand their beliefs/motivations, and just assume they are just randomly pulling triggers, not only will we only further entrench partisan divides (nothing alienates somebody more than feeling they aren't being properly understood), but we hinder our own ability to predict and prepare for the future.
Hell they lied about Trumps weight and height on his physical.
Even better, they can exult the virtues of select private sector companies who show "good" "approved" data.
What? No, no conflict of interest that members of the President's immediate family happens to hold board seats in those "approved" companies.
If you have enough sources you presumably at least can start to make observations about which sources agree and which disagree.
Actually I presume something like this already exists, but I'm not an economist so I don't know.
> If the government’s jobs data is considered biased or unreliable, Wall Street will have other places to look. ADP reports figures on private payrolls, for instance. (And it also tells a bearish story: ADP showed a net loss of jobs in June, for instance.) Meanwhile, Gallup once tracked employment numbers on a weekly basis based on its large-scale surveys and could resume that effort. Or investment banks like Goldman Sachs might conclude they could have a competitive edge by tracking their own economic data.
But in the following paragraph he points out that the numbers aren't likely to be as accurate, comprehensive, or as reassuring as numbers generated by the government. Overall though it is a really good article worth a share of its own.
E.g. similar to Census data -- central data collection managed by govt, generalized anonymous data released for interpretation by anyone.
Statistics is often counterintuitive.
Deleted Comment
Previous users of this data will seek alternative, less precise signals elsewhere and likely use conservative, pessimistic guesstimates that will tend to be risk-adverse and not encourage expansion or investment.
I think the government stuff is a bit of a farce. They have an incentive like any other institution. For instance, inflation metrics are tied to trillions of dollars in terms of retirement benefits or other programs that are indexed to inflation. They have a gigantic incentive to play with the numbers. And I'm 100% convinced that they do. Does anyone believe food prices went up only 28% since pre-covid? Did something go from costing $4 to $5? No, most things close to doubled. But they're able to play with the numbers changing the basket (beef getting more expensive, we'll just swap that out with Tofu!).
Now you have four problems, as it were.
If the thesis is that the government can't be trusted to run its own affairs, then more government isn't a solution.
The actual "fourth branch" of government is supposed to be the people, either giving a shit and being engaged in their civic duty and not electing tyrants for entertainment value or to "own the libs," or else doing the other thing that Americans love to talk about doing.
In such a setup, lack of democratic oversight is not a bug but a feature. It prevents democratically elected but possibly not entirely stable governments from doing something stupid. The drawback, of course, is that it also prevents democratically elected and intensely well meaning governments from doing the right thing if the supranational entity does not wish to facilitate that right thing.
This setup works (after a fashion) for a group of small and fairly weak countries, but for a single large and powerful country like the US there simply isn’t a supranational entity powerful enough to reign it in.