President Trump’s Firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics head renews concerns about data integrity.
Given the pervasive political polarization of our time, it is important to stay focused on the facts. Accurate federal data are essential for understanding how the economy is performing and for guiding smart policy decisions at every level of government.
One powerful illustration of the importance of accurate data comes from the historical experience of the U.S. economy as a whole. Major improvements in our data collection and “national income accounting” in the 1930s and 1940s have contributed to vastly increasing the share of the time that our economy grows rather than shrinks—and hence have contributed to much steadier increases in American living standards. Since World War II, instead of a recession roughly every three years (12 recessions between 1880 and 1920), we’ve experienced one every 6.5 years (i.e., 13 in 80 years). We’ve experienced only four recessions in the past 43 years (five if it turns out that we’re at the beginning of one now).
Agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) hold the unenviable task of reporting robust, nonpartisan data to those in power, regardless of what those numbers say. Their painstakingly collected and rigorously processed data guide investment and business decisions from Wall Street to Main Street to the kitchen table, as well as local, state, and federal policy. If political interference threatens the collection and reporting of these key data, it will undermine the ability to make informed decisions, erode public trust, increase economic uncertainty, and make recessions and slow growth more likely.
Simply put, inaccurate data leads to poor policy decisions and wasted resources.
President Trump’s firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Dr. Erika McEntarfer is not just a personnel change; it’s a move toward politicizing truth. Confirmed to her post by a bipartisan 86-8 Senate vote, she was respected as a non-partisan official with a long track-record of prioritizing data integrity. President Trump has signaled his replacement plans, with National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett publicly claiming that the president “wants his own people there” to make sure jobs numbers could be “trusted”.
Data associations including Friends of BLS, a group headed by former BLS commissioners appointed by both Democrat and Republican presidents (including President Trump), and The Association of Public Data Users have criticized the firing, calling it “groundless” and “unacceptable”, stressing the importance that the “nonpartisan integrity of the position” be retained.
The experience of our national economy makes emphatically clear that data integrity is not just another political food fight and fodder for rants on social media. This is an issue of immense practical importance. By threatening the accuracy of economic data, President Trump further increases the probability of an economic downturn and the flatlining of people’s wages and incomes. Without reliable data, the American people lose out and it becomes harder to hold government accountable.