One of the most concerning aspects of this issue is that it only takes one instance of political meddling in what is supposed to be independent data collection/reporting to permanently damage trust in government-provided data. You touched on this early on, but when I was in grad school a couple of years ago doing a master’s in applied economics, government data was among the most trustworthy sources available. It wasn’t always the easiest to use, depending on things like the level of aggregation or frequency of collection, but there were never any doubts about the accuracy or integrity of the data. In my experience, BLS data, in particular, has been among the highest quality government data available.
Now, say Trump appoints someone new to lead BLS data collection and reporting, and that person says, “The previously reported numbers were incorrect, these are the actual numbers,” providing new figures that differ from the old ones and happen to be more favorable to Trump’s policies. How is anyone supposed to trust that those numbers are more accurate, especially when no justification is given for why the previous data is suddenly unreliable, other than that it’s politically inconvenient?
Fast forward four years: Democrats win the election and appoint their own person to oversee data collection and reporting. The numbers change again. Even if they revert to the original methodology, they’ve still interfered with what is supposed to be an independent, nonpartisan process. At that point, critics could make the same argument we’re now making about Trump: “How can we trust the data when your party’s political appointee is the one producing it?” I’m not saying the two scenarios are morally equivalent, but they both risk leading to a situation where Democrats calculate and report data one way, and Republicans calculate and report it another. That’s a dangerous precedent.
Finally, from a practical standpoint, changes to how data is collected, calculated, or reported can seriously undermine its usability. If unemployment statistics, for example, are reported differently one year to the next, you lose the ability to make meaningful comparisons over time. Even if both data points technically measure unemployment, they are no longer measuring it in the same way, making direct year-over-year comparisons invalid. Ultimately, I believe this kind of interference poses a serious threat to both the integrity and practical utility of government data, and I’m deeply concerned about what other doors it could open.
I would note though that this has been happening with CPI data for decades.
There have been huge changes to how CPI is calculated compared to say 1980. And I would argue that there are serious problems with their methodology.
For example, when a new Iphone comes out and costs the same as the old iPhone, they pretend that the cost has actually gone down, thus artificially lowering CPI. But the price didn't go down. Technology got better. But that's not the same as prices go down. They conflate the two, and yes the fact that technology is getting better to hide changes in price levels.
> At that point, critics could make the same argument we’re now making about Trump: “How can we trust the data when your party’s political appointee is the one producing it?”
While I understand the impulse here, I wish liberals could defend nonpartisan institutions without this impulse for hand-wringing. Yes, Trump broke the seal protecting trustworthy data, and no matter what we do, his supporters will try to cast aspersions on the neutrality of data they don’t like. But Jay Powell was a Republican appointed by Trump who delivered a great economy in the first term and that did nothing to protect him. In the spirit of the Serenity Prayer, I wish we could just try to fix the things that get broken without worrying about how Fox News will cover it.
I don't see how any serious person would invest in this country right now. I manage a small business and we are hemorrhaging clients due to developers pushing off new projects. Projects that were pushed off for interest rates, but committed to moving forward in Q1 are all back on the shelf until next year. Watching an empire commit suicide for the ego of one man is beyond surreal.
Another own goal by this administration. He could have kept the statistician and just railed against the numbers and his base would have believed him. Now he just further alienates normies and plays into the well-earned and not incorrect narrative of him veering into autocratic territory.
One of the most concerning aspects of this issue is that it only takes one instance of political meddling in what is supposed to be independent data collection/reporting to permanently damage trust in government-provided data. You touched on this early on, but when I was in grad school a couple of years ago doing a master’s in applied economics, government data was among the most trustworthy sources available. It wasn’t always the easiest to use, depending on things like the level of aggregation or frequency of collection, but there were never any doubts about the accuracy or integrity of the data. In my experience, BLS data, in particular, has been among the highest quality government data available.
Now, say Trump appoints someone new to lead BLS data collection and reporting, and that person says, “The previously reported numbers were incorrect, these are the actual numbers,” providing new figures that differ from the old ones and happen to be more favorable to Trump’s policies. How is anyone supposed to trust that those numbers are more accurate, especially when no justification is given for why the previous data is suddenly unreliable, other than that it’s politically inconvenient?
Fast forward four years: Democrats win the election and appoint their own person to oversee data collection and reporting. The numbers change again. Even if they revert to the original methodology, they’ve still interfered with what is supposed to be an independent, nonpartisan process. At that point, critics could make the same argument we’re now making about Trump: “How can we trust the data when your party’s political appointee is the one producing it?” I’m not saying the two scenarios are morally equivalent, but they both risk leading to a situation where Democrats calculate and report data one way, and Republicans calculate and report it another. That’s a dangerous precedent.
Finally, from a practical standpoint, changes to how data is collected, calculated, or reported can seriously undermine its usability. If unemployment statistics, for example, are reported differently one year to the next, you lose the ability to make meaningful comparisons over time. Even if both data points technically measure unemployment, they are no longer measuring it in the same way, making direct year-over-year comparisons invalid. Ultimately, I believe this kind of interference poses a serious threat to both the integrity and practical utility of government data, and I’m deeply concerned about what other doors it could open.
Very much agreed to all of this.
I would note though that this has been happening with CPI data for decades.
There have been huge changes to how CPI is calculated compared to say 1980. And I would argue that there are serious problems with their methodology.
For example, when a new Iphone comes out and costs the same as the old iPhone, they pretend that the cost has actually gone down, thus artificially lowering CPI. But the price didn't go down. Technology got better. But that's not the same as prices go down. They conflate the two, and yes the fact that technology is getting better to hide changes in price levels.
> At that point, critics could make the same argument we’re now making about Trump: “How can we trust the data when your party’s political appointee is the one producing it?”
While I understand the impulse here, I wish liberals could defend nonpartisan institutions without this impulse for hand-wringing. Yes, Trump broke the seal protecting trustworthy data, and no matter what we do, his supporters will try to cast aspersions on the neutrality of data they don’t like. But Jay Powell was a Republican appointed by Trump who delivered a great economy in the first term and that did nothing to protect him. In the spirit of the Serenity Prayer, I wish we could just try to fix the things that get broken without worrying about how Fox News will cover it.
I don't see how any serious person would invest in this country right now. I manage a small business and we are hemorrhaging clients due to developers pushing off new projects. Projects that were pushed off for interest rates, but committed to moving forward in Q1 are all back on the shelf until next year. Watching an empire commit suicide for the ego of one man is beyond surreal.
Another own goal by this administration. He could have kept the statistician and just railed against the numbers and his base would have believed him. Now he just further alienates normies and plays into the well-earned and not incorrect narrative of him veering into autocratic territory.