CNN
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Federal economic data is one of the purest forms of infrastructure, says Erica Grossen, former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“These data keep our economy running just as much as our roads and bridges,” she said.
Policy makers, businesses, organizations, and other entities rely heavily on vast swathes of detailed data and long-term statistical trends to make investments and decisions.
But that statistical infrastructure, already in a precarious state in terms of funding, response rates and public trust, is at high risk of collapse, Groshen and others warn.
It remains to be seen how the federal statistical agency will fare under President Donald Trump, who has criticized economic data and sought to roll back government programs. As in the Doge era, the newly formed Office of Government Efficiency aims to streamline large swaths of government.
Concerns about potential cuts or changes to the data – which world leaders, regulators, economists and executives have relied on for decades – have statisticians inside and outside government questioning how critical data is collected. It comes when the government asks for funding to make it more modern. surfaced and pervasive.
Other researchers told CNN that their fears not only question the legitimacy of economic figures in recent months, but also how research and economic data are influenced by an administration that is actively shutting down They said their fears about whether or not they would be affected are being amplified (and in some cases realized). Takes down several federal programs and websites that provide resources to underserved communities.
Dying research and losing trust
Federal government data is considered the “gold standard” because of its long history of reliability, quality, comprehensiveness, transparency, and history.
It is also at a crossroads.
William Beach, who served as BLS commissioner during Trump’s first term, said investigating people for the sake of investigating people is problematic.
“The investigation is dying,” Beach told CNN. “And it’s not a cold, it’s a terminal illness.”
He said people are tired of being investigated, especially through channels the government relies on. Response rates have plummeted in recent years due to the variety of surveys that serve as the backbone of some of the most important economic data.
“If response rates are low, our estimates will be more volatile and benchmark revisions (which typically account for hard data sources such as tax records) will be larger,” Beach said.
And that volatility opens the door to criticism, he said.
“With bigger revisions and statistical systems on their heels, people are taking potshots at the data,” Beach said. “It’s very unfortunate that they’re doing it, and it’s being done left and right. It’s not about Republicans or Democrats. It’s just the politicians who are finding good targets.”
One of the most notable examples of this occurred in August 2024 when the BLS released a preliminary benchmark revision of employment data for March 2024. This prompted Trump to post that the jobs data is “a lie” and that the Biden administration is “rigging the jobs statistics.”
The revision process occurs annually and did so under Trump – and economists believe the larger revision (which was a small fraction of overall employment) is due to the continued impact from the pandemic and subsequent surge in immigration. It was pointed out that this was due to.
“Trust is critical of statistical agencies,” Groshen said. “If you build a bridge and no one believes in it, they won’t run it.”
In addition to declining response rates, statistical agencies are facing a long-term trend of declining funding, Groshen said.
Similarly, the agency has become more efficient, she said. But it hasn’t come without tradeoffs.
“We had to reduce some of the bandwidth we used for contingency, resiliency, and modernization because we need to maintain the flow of data that our users rely on,” she said.
The Census Bureau is working to modernize the Current Population Survey. It is one of two major surveys that produce monthly employment reports and serve as a source of national unemployment rates. However, it was also steadily decreasing response rates due to issues such as privacy concerns, cell phone-only households, and respondent availability.
The purpose is to add an online-based response component.
“You really have to test it before you make changes like this. It’s a slow, rigorous process that maintains this continuity of information over time,” she said. “BLS and the Census Bureau want it to be funded for five years, and it’s not funded.”
Some of the stated plans to streamline the government present a “huge” risk to federal data, she said, because statistical agencies fall under discretionary funds.
“If you make a big bang in the budget, almost all discretionary spending has to go, and that includes statistical agencies,” she said.
And that’s the opposite of the desired effect, she said.
“If you want government to be efficient, how can you make it efficient if you can’t measure anything? If you can’t measure cause and effect. If you can’t measure economic conditions, you can’t measure where the problems are. Do you want to be able to target them?” she said. “If businesses and governments making decisions have less information or bad information, their decisions will be worse. The economy will be less efficient. Investors will be less informed about where to put their money. I don’t have good information.
Still, according to Groshen, she has a proposal floated in Project 2025, a controversial playbook for the reimagined federal government published by conservatives at the Heritage Foundation ahead of Trump’s second term. We believe that there is a common basis for some of these. The Department of Commerce chapter included a proposal to consolidate several statistical agencies.
“I think the idea of [integration]has some merit in the right way. It could be a very good thing for statistical agencies,” he said. “I would not put them under a cabinet secretary. I would put them in an independent body headed by the chief statistician of the United States and make sure their funds are safe.”
If money is tight, Beach said there may also be opportunities to explore partnerships with universities by doing certain research or programs or cutting others.
There are some backstops.
Some organizations, such as Grassroots, actively crawl and archive government websites – especially during changes in management.
One of them is the end of the Web Archive project, which has been active since 2008. This organization aims to collect and preserve information disseminated in the government and military sphere at the end of the presidential conditions.
End of Semester Web Archives are nominated for URLs to be archived, or as organizations call them, “seeds” for web crawlers.
“We reviewed our report, and all of these (economic data) agency sites were named,” James Jacobs, U.S. government information librarian at Stanford University and EOT participant, told CNN. I wrote this in an email response.
Noting that economic data is often collected based on legislative requirements, Jacobs said organizations such as the Census Project and the Users of Public Data Association actively track and advocate for government data at the parliamentary level. said.
A report released last week by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, which conducts research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy, found that the extent to which data may be reduced or deleted is limited to services that It can have a chilling effect on enough communities.
Trump’s executive order redefining “gender” as only male and female and eliminating efforts focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion will ultimately end up hurting marginalized Americans, including those within the LGBTQ+ community. may impact federal data involving
“The Williams Institute is thrilled to be working with the Williams Institute to ensure that we have the opportunity to continue working together,” said Christy Mallory, Interim Executive Director and Legal Director at the Williams Institute. “In order to address some of the larger economic and employment issues, we need to know what’s happening in subpopulations of people. Trans people who are disproportionately unemployed or unemployed. It is difficult to eradicate unemployment without knowing what is happening in marginalized communities, including people.
But the risks run deeper and could ultimately impact the health and well-being of Americans, she said.
“Not seeing questions about you and asking them in surveys or reading about questions being rolled back has other implications that people often don’t think about.
