Another Casualty of the War on Reality

 

Via 5 Calls Civic Action.

There's a hint of rationality in Trump's violent reaction to the July jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, when he accused the BLS of "rigging" the numbers in an attempt to harm him ("ME"), and abruptly fired the commissioner, Erika McEntarfer:

Though the history is virtually all fiction: the October 2024 jobs report, issued two days before the election on November 1, was dismal for the Democrats, counting just 12,000 new jobs for the month, effectively zero, and a downward revision of 112,000 jobs to the August and September numbers; there was no report issued on November 15 (it always comes out on the first Friday of the new month); and in the next report, issued on December 6, listed a gangbusters gain for November of 227,000 jobs and significant upward revisions of 56,000 for September and October—so if it was rigged to affect the presidential election it must have been rigged against the Harris campaign and in Trump's favor. (Of course it wasn't rigged at all.) The 818,000-job downward revision referred to in the "Truth" was announced in August 2024, well before the election, and covered the previous 12 months, so that would have favored Trump too. Has anybody but me bothered to check any of this out? 

The bit of rationality is in the fact that this month's downward revisions really do seem unusually high, from 291,000 jobs in May and June to just 33,000 for the two months. That's a collapse of almost 90%! How on earth did they get it so wrong? You can see why Trump might feel a little suspicious.

Pretty sure I know the answer to that one too, and it's Trump's own fault, as a matter of fact. I know about it because it was reported on the radio on [checks notes] Monday, in a story that was primarily about the wrecking of federal data by the Trump administration's stupid censorship of racial and ethnic categorizations, anything smelling of climate change, or anything related to sexual orientation and gender identity; but wait, there's more:

There’s another way federal data is being undermined, said Steve Pierson [, director of science policy at the American Statistical Association]: across-the-board job cuts initiated by DOGE starting at the beginning of the Trump administration, which Pierson estimates led to 15% to 40% staff attrition at some statistical agencies. 

“The biggest impacts so far have been just the reductions of force, which are collateral damage,” said Pierson, leaving fewer trained statisticians to sample, survey, and analyze results for error, seasonal, or regional variation. (ASA is monitoring individual actions to change federal databases and data collection here.)

Agencies like BLS (which measures consumer price inflation as well as employment and unemployment levels) are seriously understaffed, thanks to Trump and Musk and the DOGEboys firing people without congressional authorization (and possibly Vought replacing professionals with unqualified political hires, as laid out in Project 2025). The professionals claim to be confident that they're producing good data, but it seems pretty clear to me that at the very least those initial monthly jobs figures are likely to need more revision than they have needed in the past, and I'm sure that's the reason for the crazy-looking discrepancy in the May and June figures.

It's also going to lead to less granularity, according to former BLS commissioner Erica Groshen: they won't compromise on quality, but they'll have to surrender something on quantity—

in the face of ongoing funding cuts — BLS faces an 8% nominal funding reduction under the president’s budget, she said — the agency might eventually have to stop publishing some of its other reports. She said those most likely to be scaled back or cancelled include: “the American Time Use Survey, the national longitudinal surveys, occupational injuries and illnesses, and even JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey), because the information is a little bit aged when it comes out.”

Making me wonder: Trump and his people won't be able to "rig" the data by altering the numbers with a Sharpie, let alone more legitimate-looking means, they don't have anything like the required skills, but as his stupid tariff policies make the numbers worse along with the economic situation, they may make an attempt to publish less of it. Maybe they'll try to get access to it before it's published (something the White House has never had with BLS statistics) and hold it back if they don't like it.

It's not literally killing people like the slashing of USAID programs, or destroying families like the ICE marauders, but the firing of Erika McEntarfer is as corrupt and blatantly self-serving as any action Trump has taken since he went into politics, and it's certainly contributing to the enshittification of the government in areas where it does some of its best work. Democracy doesn't guarantee good government, you know, but dictatorship, bending the state to the gratification of the dictator and his vanity, is ensured to make it worse.

Cross-posted at The Rectification of Names.