What is not a matter of belief is the shoddy numbers the BLS puts out on the monthly Employment Situation Summary. I've been writing about the vaudevillian absurdities in that report literally for a couple of years now. Trump's not wrong to be steamed about that
By the time the weekend rolled around I ran out of functioning brain cells, and needed a day of rest.
Even a contemplative essay like my Peter's Proverbs articles requires a measure of energy to come up with quality writing, and this weekend it just wasn't there.
I would imagine the timing and direction of “adjustments” would be a firm marker for the political machinations behind them. Seems to me that under the Biden administration the negative adjustments were made as surreptitiously as possible in order to minimize their political impact, while those under Trump are generally in the other direction.
We must remember that the 818,000 "correction" President Trump mentioned in his Truth Social posts stemmed from the periodic review of the quarterly data. That is a separate correction from the follow-up revisions that are part of the monthly Employment Situation Summary. That monthly revision for July was the largest such correction post-COVID.
Neither correction speaks well of the BLS, as they were many times larger than normal. However, it does not necessarily follow that either correction was politically motivated.
The data doesn't prove political bias. It also doesn't disprove political bias. It does prove sloppy data management practices, and that's not something a Director of the BLS should tolerate even for a moment.
Smart detective work, Peter - you zero in closer to the truth! Again, it leads me to wondering to what extent Trump understands the data as you do. Did he fire the head of the BLS partly because he understood that the Fed was messing with the data, but it’s too impolitic to fire Powell? Is it also a warning to the board members of the Fed? (Rhetorical question of course.)
There are two additional data factors that are difficult to accurately track. One is something that you’ve written about in the past: the fake jobs openings that are not actually expected to be filled, but are the result of immigration visa requirements and of DEI job postings. Both of these could be shifting now that the Trump administration is in power, but I don’t know how you’d pin the numbers down.
The other involves the facts we know about illegal immigrants. We know there were millions incoming during the Biden years, we know that some of them ended up in black-market jobs that are not officially tracked, and we know that many of those workers are now gone. We can assume that some positions held by illegal immigrants are now held by legal workers, but some jobs might be “reclassified” in HR to fit government requirements, etc. I don’t know how anyone could ever obtain accurate data about shifts from illegal to legal jobs. If you have some data that gives clues, maybe you could extrapolate to partially explaining some discrepancies - but there is likely never going to be acceptable accuracy right?
Thank you for all of your intelligent sleuthing work, Magnificent Man!
One possible explanation for the uptick in net hiring per the JOLTS reports could be a transition from illegal to legal workers.
However, if those jobs were under the table it is unclear why they would be reported in the Establishment Survey, which they would have to be in order for the loss of illegal workers not to produce an increase reported jobs.
Thus even if President Trump’s crackdown on illegal aliens is having significant impact on employment (which is likely) we still arrive at the same situation where either the JOLTS report is wrong or the Establishment Survey is wrong.
The head of the BLS should be quite able to recognize such anomalies and address them in the reporting. This was not done.
You’re right, of course! What is unclear is just how much of the raw jobs data is muddied, and how much of it became increasingly muddied during the Biden administration.
When I was obsessed with studying Developmental Economics back in the 70s, one of the correlations that was obvious was this: the more governmental control on an economy, the greater became the black market of undocumented economic activity. We studied some Central and South American economies where literally 70% of the economy was off the official books. Everything transacted through bribes, kickbacks, graft, and corruption of all kinds.
I have definitely seen this trend increase in America during my lifetime. Even when I was working as an environmental engineer during the 90s, I was disgusted at the amount of government involved, and the ways that companies would have to fudge information in order to get things done. So I’m wondering now, just how much worse did things become during the Big Brother years of the Biden administration? I would not be surprised if it turns out to be a LOT.
Government control and regulation has always been a stimulus for black market economies. That is true in all parts of the world and has been true throughout history.
100% political gaming of the statistics, Nate Silver style paid whore, not supposed to be accurate. Trumps people would do the same.
There is some light. One of the answers out there is gaining support in US.
https://justhinkin.substack.com/p/us-support-grows-for-outlawing-autocracy?r=3cs2wr
Great article shedding light on a subject!
Comes down to "who do you believe?"
The background really helps.
In terms of the political bias charge, it does.
What is not a matter of belief is the shoddy numbers the BLS puts out on the monthly Employment Situation Summary. I've been writing about the vaudevillian absurdities in that report literally for a couple of years now. Trump's not wrong to be steamed about that
Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear.
I've always believed that bias existed in any of the reports.
Firstly, as they were always, inevitably "revised", and secondly, you have provided the receipts.
So thank you.
I tend to view the bias at the BLS as more of a bureaucratic (Deep State?) bias.
Even bureaucrats have agendas. The trick is knowing what those agendas are.
Good article and explanation. Will be linking as usual @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
Also, just curious, no proverb this week. Always look forward to them on Sunday!
Also, of course, you are entitled to take some time off anytime you feel like it, Peter. We’ll still be here, awaiting your next genius post.
By the time the weekend rolled around I ran out of functioning brain cells, and needed a day of rest.
Even a contemplative essay like my Peter's Proverbs articles requires a measure of energy to come up with quality writing, and this weekend it just wasn't there.
I’m glad that’s all it was, Peter! I was a bit concerned.
I would imagine the timing and direction of “adjustments” would be a firm marker for the political machinations behind them. Seems to me that under the Biden administration the negative adjustments were made as surreptitiously as possible in order to minimize their political impact, while those under Trump are generally in the other direction.
The case for political bias is problematic.
We must remember that the 818,000 "correction" President Trump mentioned in his Truth Social posts stemmed from the periodic review of the quarterly data. That is a separate correction from the follow-up revisions that are part of the monthly Employment Situation Summary. That monthly revision for July was the largest such correction post-COVID.
Neither correction speaks well of the BLS, as they were many times larger than normal. However, it does not necessarily follow that either correction was politically motivated.
The data doesn't prove political bias. It also doesn't disprove political bias. It does prove sloppy data management practices, and that's not something a Director of the BLS should tolerate even for a moment.
Smart detective work, Peter - you zero in closer to the truth! Again, it leads me to wondering to what extent Trump understands the data as you do. Did he fire the head of the BLS partly because he understood that the Fed was messing with the data, but it’s too impolitic to fire Powell? Is it also a warning to the board members of the Fed? (Rhetorical question of course.)
There are two additional data factors that are difficult to accurately track. One is something that you’ve written about in the past: the fake jobs openings that are not actually expected to be filled, but are the result of immigration visa requirements and of DEI job postings. Both of these could be shifting now that the Trump administration is in power, but I don’t know how you’d pin the numbers down.
The other involves the facts we know about illegal immigrants. We know there were millions incoming during the Biden years, we know that some of them ended up in black-market jobs that are not officially tracked, and we know that many of those workers are now gone. We can assume that some positions held by illegal immigrants are now held by legal workers, but some jobs might be “reclassified” in HR to fit government requirements, etc. I don’t know how anyone could ever obtain accurate data about shifts from illegal to legal jobs. If you have some data that gives clues, maybe you could extrapolate to partially explaining some discrepancies - but there is likely never going to be acceptable accuracy right?
Thank you for all of your intelligent sleuthing work, Magnificent Man!
One possible explanation for the uptick in net hiring per the JOLTS reports could be a transition from illegal to legal workers.
However, if those jobs were under the table it is unclear why they would be reported in the Establishment Survey, which they would have to be in order for the loss of illegal workers not to produce an increase reported jobs.
Thus even if President Trump’s crackdown on illegal aliens is having significant impact on employment (which is likely) we still arrive at the same situation where either the JOLTS report is wrong or the Establishment Survey is wrong.
The head of the BLS should be quite able to recognize such anomalies and address them in the reporting. This was not done.
You’re right, of course! What is unclear is just how much of the raw jobs data is muddied, and how much of it became increasingly muddied during the Biden administration.
When I was obsessed with studying Developmental Economics back in the 70s, one of the correlations that was obvious was this: the more governmental control on an economy, the greater became the black market of undocumented economic activity. We studied some Central and South American economies where literally 70% of the economy was off the official books. Everything transacted through bribes, kickbacks, graft, and corruption of all kinds.
I have definitely seen this trend increase in America during my lifetime. Even when I was working as an environmental engineer during the 90s, I was disgusted at the amount of government involved, and the ways that companies would have to fudge information in order to get things done. So I’m wondering now, just how much worse did things become during the Big Brother years of the Biden administration? I would not be surprised if it turns out to be a LOT.
Government control and regulation has always been a stimulus for black market economies. That is true in all parts of the world and has been true throughout history.