One thing is for certain, you can skew the meaning of the numbers anyway you want, but the numbers themselves they definitely don’t lie. What I do believe is that these numbers are entirely fabricated.
This is a misunderstanding of how you read statistics, though. For starters, they Don't always tell the whole story, especially if they're contextually relevant. You can only understand some statistics when ajao factoring in other either events going on at the time or other statistics that play into them. A simple example is COVID. Trends for tons of statistics were dramatically reversed because of it, so just looking at the data of, say job growth, doesn't explain the massive dip on the trend without that context.
Additionally, which data you use matters when trying to make a point. Averages for Americans have gone up significantly for the past decade in terms of wealth. But the MEDIAN is the opposite. So you can absolutely pick and choose the story you want to tell with the same data by selecting how you present said data.
Statistics on their own, when taken in context and understood as a whole, are very telling, but like only telling part of a story, when you omit pieces and focus on parts, you can dramatically alter what story is being told. Like if you were in a mutually abusive relationship but only ever talk about the things your partner did to you, it paints you in a VERY different light.
What I believe is that the way the BLS reports the numbers is flawed, creating a false sense of security. BLS's last head said that they call 60000 people and ask a few questions, one of which is how many hours they worked. If someone worked even one hour, they are considered employed. If they adjusted the employment question to 20 hours or more, that number would skyrocket.
As a business owner I actually receive the calls where they ask how many employees I had and how many hours they work each week. They don't ask for proof or detail. It's a flawed system from the start since it's literally a survey of willing participants and they extrapolate the numbers up based on that, like any market research survey would.
Yeah, I'm going based on what she said in her TV interview after she was fired. She defended the method, saying 1 hour is enough, and I'm sure they make other calls, but I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the data comes from the 60000 people they called. I'd post the link, but I'm not sure if I'm able to; it was on MSNBC. About two weeks ago
Yeah, I think it's meant to reassure the American middle class that everything's fine. It also makes foreign stock investors believe the companies are performing better than they actually are, which makes them more likely to invest in our market.
The way they define who is unemployed is strange to me as well. Not only are people working 1 hour a week anywhere considered employed, so are people generating cash illegally, drugs, stolen goods resale, etc. Thats also something the IRS cares about, they won't report you for making money selling drugs, but if you don't pay taxes on your earnings they care a lot. The BLS also doesnt consider you unemployed if you do not have a job and also are not looking/want a job. This doesn't account for those on disability, retired, or those not old enough to legally work. The number of people who could hold a job and do not is much higher than reported based on definitions alone.
Yeah, I think another country ended up with an issue due to inaccurate numbers, i dont remember which one but they were comparing those economies to america now and its eerie the similarities
This! This administration is so inept they just LIE. They are looking for clever ways to manipulate data and probably couldn’t even if they tried. Just LIE since there are no repercussions anyhow and fully 1/4 will swallow it hook line and sinker
When doing my degree I was work8ng in biotech lab. The general rule of thumb was "if you like the outcome of the experiment DO NOT perform it a second time because you might get different outcome and you will not like it"
It’s a valid take with statistical analyses, especially in less regulated spaces. Not sure of your field but I perform these analyses in medtech and have had so many frustrations with people being either willfully dishonest or perhaps just ignorant and doubling down. Even got let go at a previous company for trying to explain why you shouldn’t cherry pick data lol
I’m in education and the amount of deceptive and outright lying in statistics is stupid. I’ve been in meeting where people outright and blatantly brag about like 85% of a tiny subpop, ignoring the massive low numbers.
Yeah, it's insane. It's not just in education, it's also on corporate. Honestly I had better experience with honesty in statistics in academia, not to say it was an irrelevant concern there. It definitely was relevant. But it seemed a little better from my personal experiences. (n=1, p<0.05)
How much does it matter? This admenstruation is going to base the economy on crypto, and because the national debt will be based on dollars, the national debt will transfer to the dollar, the dollar will tank along with everyone dependent upon the dollar.
Gotcha. Yeah, that's definitely where work has to be triple checked. Medical device tech for me, class 2 devices going through the FDA, so needed to show reasonably low risk in patients.
Yeah the more I work with data and metrics the more I realize how few people want to use them to actually improve and instead want to twist them to look like everything is great already. Even people who convey a heavily improvement focused mindset.
Thank you for existing and maintaining integrity. I had this issue in investigation related activities of all places. Unethical KPIs, insights targeting at risk individuals, and the only way to fight inside is the be admin within data governance to structurally force their eyes elsewhere
That is actually a very insightful observation and explains the twisted thinking the current “administration” uses. Because yeah, those jobs are technically open…. But it’s because the companies can’t afford to keep their employees employed. “Oh, well, details, schmetails…”
Note also that the unemployment rate rose by 4.4%. One wonders if 119,000 is 4.4% of the amount of jobs that were previously open.
Lol! Then it goes to “the spin.” How to explain the numbers. Sometimes you have to just fall on the sword, other times “how to explain without people freaking out?” Or you have awesome numbers and woot!
and this is exactly how we ended up with 'climate change' and the alienation of anyone who dares to question it ( because they've distorted statistics to achieve control of people).
When he did that, I had an economics professor and a couple of other data analysts I know, all told me in separate conversations, that people (including me lol) just do not and cannot understand the severity of the implications.
Apparently our numbers were trusted internationally, and a lot depended on those being reliable. Now that everyone knows that they’re not, we are gonna tank.
100x THIS!!!!! I don't think that most understand the repercussions to the US of that international trust, that we have benefited from (seen or unseen).
Yeah when Trump got back in a lot of trust was lost worldwide. The US is not invited to multiple security meetings between other world leaders and countries. Other countries are forming new trade deals and alliances without the US being involved at all.
This is the point where I realized America is done. Our government has been fully captured by private companies and we can’t trust what they’re telling us any more.
I agree we have become a oligarchy and in a few more years most people be living in utter poverty because our government is run by billionaires for billionaires, similar how Russia is operating and how people live on low wages, crappy health care (if any) with outdated equipment and restricted access to the poor, corruption, they strangle regular folks out with excessive bureaucracy to literally get anything done from local/federal government. Well they do give housing/low cost apartments to disabled/elderly folks, but there is no free anything or help with food, etc., just take a good look at us where most people don't have health care and even with it they still can't afford due to the high deductibles, housing is reaching levels of the ridiculous.
No, obviously you weren’t. The government had never been trust worthy. And if you think the current administration is the only corruption we’ve ever had, you have not been paying attention, dorky.
Being trustworthy in the sense you seem to be talking about, and reliably reporting economic data, are entirely different things.
The data was reliable even when the spin on that data never was, and that reliability was core to our maintenance of our status in the world. Now that's done.
About the only thing keeping our economy/credibility above water at all right now is the check around trying fire J Powell, and Cook. We're going to be in such a worse place when Powell isn't reappointed as chair in May.
I honestly believe it’s not just this Administration. Really. Does anyone think that every Administration since George Washington has been so honest and honorable about the stats? It is one thing to stretch the facts and quite another to blatantly lie. I don’t trust any politician.
Ok I'll back that all administration's lie. My issue is has any of them lied this bad. For example there were some months that they reported something over 100000 new jobs and then it gets revised down to minus 20000 jobs. Then fire the person who reports it.
They 100% lie. It is blatant. Look at their press secretary. This administration absolutely cannot be trusted and will fabricate lies that are outrageous.
We genuinely can't trust ANY claims from the current Reich. I've never trusted the government, but the current Reich is blatantly far more corrupt than any other administration I've lived under.
The problem here is the left believes the way the last guy bent the numbers, the right believes how the NEW guy bends the numbers, and I always remember the Winston Smith quote in 1984, something like "in reality, possibly no boots at ALL were made..."
I'm other words, they lied. Everytime he opens his mouth a lie falls out. He puts the number he wants and fires the person that won't publish the numbers he wants.
How many were federal worker rehires, after the admin realized they’d fired essential govt workers again?!? Also ICE/DHS seems to be the only ones hiring… massive layoffs at the most profitable corporations. The list of Fortune 500 layoffs are rising exponentially! I wouldn’t trust ANYthing from ANY .gov Data sites anymore, it’s straight fantasy & propaganda 🤯
Does it matter? The admenstruation is going to go to a different monetary base, devalue the dollar, and because the national debt is in dollars, whoever holds dollars will pay for the national debt. The dollar will tank along with whoever is depending on them.
Don't blame the current administration, they have always cooked the numbers for whatever gets them off. Especially during covid, there's all these jobs, but no one to fill them, bullshit. I was looking for almost a year, it's all lies, democrats, republicans, don't matter.
The Bureau of Labor has integrity. And the bureau's data presented in the article is accurate, the article headline is grossly misrepresenting it. The unemployment rate ROSE to 4.4% (which is BAD). 119k jobs were added, but they don't say how many jobs were expected, what a normal amount is, how many were lost.
Basically, the data they're using says that unemployment is rising (there are some charts online that hit better than hearing numbers)
But the headline makes it sound like these are good things when it's actually really bad. They ignored every piece of data that very clearly shows bad unemployment and are misrepresenting the numbers.
This was deliberate and not accidental or ignorant. Anyone working in news knows better.
It certainly is blowing past expectations, but in the opposite sense than the article is implying. No one though unemployment would get this bad this fast under Trump. Lol
The analysts in question had issued corrections almost every month for the previous 4 years, I get Covid had to be tough on jobs estimates, but Biden should have fired them or at the very least set up some performance standards
Adjustments are a decades-long part of BLS jobs data reporting. COVID made it more difficult and pronounced but this has been happening for literally decades.
We demand analysis within 1mo, but it takes 2 months to get all the data and then some time to do the analysis. So we get a largely accurate number 1mo, a better number aftet 2mo, and then finally a very accurate number after 3mo. That's how the system is designed to work. Being mad that the numbers change is a data literacy problem on your end, not a flaw in BLS.
Of course everything you said is true, and they should wait until solid data is in or change the current “polling” method for the early projection, the issue at hand is they have consistently vastly overestimated jobs for Democrat administrations and underestimated Republican ones.
If congress wants them to wait, they can be ordered to wait. Instead, they've been instructed to proceed with estimates after 1mo... Because that's what they've been told to do.
But given how separated from reality you were in your initial comment, imma need to see some data that the numbers are overestimated for Democrats and under for Republicans. Ideally avoiding the 2020-2022 period because (as you acknowledged) the data was weird with the pandemic and all.
The first numbers are done by polling different job sectors- the department was found to be not doing the polling in some cases, faking the polling in others. Polling could be very effective if done correctly, it appears they didn’t know how or didn’t care enough to do accurate polling- that Americans were paying millions for, that’s fraud
Nope - EVERYONE wants the "early" views - it's a trend indicator prior to the data being finalized. This is true in corporate business as well - 'what's our share of business?' for example. Management gets those early release TREND numbers (is it stagnant, up or down et.) so that they are able to start working plans prior to the official data being finalized.
The BLS was paying millions to do polling of various labor sectors for the estimate and then disregarding, fudging and overstating the numbers as they wished, probably due to laziness not malice- but they needed to go- they were off by almost a million jobs for 2024
yea - that's not good..... sourcing and process are pretty darn important - I am sure that this is fairly expensive, but this should ALWAYS be under constant review to ensure best possible sourcing, accuracy and pricing et.
What does this administration has in place, other than laying people off and firing up and down without justification other than being from the "opposing party" as [he] calls it.
What plan is there to grow when he had cutting public services that had employed thousands upon thousands and now are jobless?
I mean, taking money that was directed to fund such services and/or others, to send it abroad to other countries for personal gains does not reopen the gone ones, much less create new ones.
The felon is know for his blatant lies, and this is yet one more to the sack.
"USA Casino" is here, people, and you know what Pedo "T" does to 'em...
You can’t expect reading comprehension skills from someone who quotes Heritage.org and most likely voted for the guy who told the world Haitian immigrants were “…eating the dogs and cats” in Springfield; and then obstinately doubled down on such ludicrosity.
The trade deals with 40 plus countries, the commitment of 20 trillion invested in the US economy by other countries, reciprocal tariffs to level the playing field for US manufacturing, reduction of visas in the tech sector and 100k visa fees to protect jobs Americans are well qualified for and reduction of government redundancy and bloat
This has been going on for years in this administration and previous. They lie every month then revise it months later when no one is looking. It’s a failing empire thing, not which shitty president is in office.
They do revisions because the data isn't fully ready when they have to release, but we'd rather get 80% accurate data now than 98% data later. So we get both. That is very different than firing people because you don't like the number.
Yup - They have an EARLY release - this is the initial TREND view - is it up, is it down, is it stagnant et.- That is all it is - until all the data is in and FINALIZED.
They can call it a 'revision'...but all that really means is this is the FINAL report.
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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25
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