Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

Yesterday we saw inside information  that the Census Bureau was making up numbers that might change how job numbers were being

The Not-Credible Shrinking Unemployment Rate: Is the government deliberately misclassifying job seekers?

Of all the key figures BLS presents, the unemployment rate is probably the one which can be most easily manipulated without leaving telltale tracks. The key lies in determining whether a person is considered to be looking for work.

Translating what my informant has told me into layman’s terms — while emphasizing that this person cannot specifically describe how the perceived rigging is occurring after surveyors electronically submit their data — it appears that taking what many people would see as an acceptable level of unsuccessful action to find work is no longer enough to place one into the ranks of the unemployed. The surveyed person apparently must have taken multiple specific steps during a given week to try to get a job. Surveyors believe that the bar to be considered actively looking for work has been artificially raised, and that many people who are somewhat diligently but not constantly seeking employment are not being classified as unemployed, and are therefore not even considered members of the civilian workforce.

From here, it seems that this manipulation could be perpetrated with relatively minor computer programming changes. The IT people involved in implementing these changes would likely not grasp their significance unless they happened to be very well versed in the bureau’s detailed survey compilation procedures and rules.

Even with minor changes, the unemployment rate can change significantly. If only two million of the record 92.6 million Americans classified as not in the labor force really should be considered workforce members and therefore unemployed under consistently applied rules, the official unemployment rate would be more than a full percentage point higher.
. . .
There is some reason to believe that the alleged gamesmanship may go back more than two years — though to pull it off, I believe the administration would have had to go around BLS’s then-acting director. The sudden September 2012 unemployment rate drop from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent was also highly suspect — and, coming just as early voting in that year’s presidential election began, quite convenient.

Back to the here and now: Does anyone really believe that a hardened leftist in the “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” administration would be incapable of directing or perhaps perpetuating and enhancing such subterfuge?

No. Next question.