Comment

Comment by Analemma_

I can't find it now because Bluesky's search function is so dreadful, but after the January jobs report was better than expected, a bunch of people were assuming the BLS must have fudged the numbers. Then the person who was actually fired from the BLS by Trump actually showed up and posted saying that, as far as they can tell from talking to "surviving" colleagues, the blowback after that firing was so intense that there hasn't been further pressure on the BLS and that as far as they can tell, the numbers are still good.

If someone can find this post, please link it here, because this person was no fan of Trump and I considered it a matter of considerable personal integrity that they looked into the matter and determined they still stood by the numbers, instead of taking the easy win on Bluesky and denouncing them.

(There is a separate issue where for the last 2-3 years, the BLS's later revisions to jobs numbers have been almost entirely downward, instead of evenly distributed like they used to be, indicating some kind of systemic methodological issue, maybe some secular change in how labor markets work post-covid. The February numbers could mean maybe they've fixed the problem, or maybe they haven't and this will later get revised to something even worse. But that issue predates Trump.)

parent Analemma_ 8 months ago

Discussion

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton