[lbo-talk] employment

Christian Gregory christian11 at mindspring.com
Fri Aug 6 12:33:10 PDT 2004



>But the statistical adjustments do lead a lot of folks to wonder how much
>change in the economy is due to underlying reality and how much is due to
>odd statistical decisions made by the government statisticians.

Again, what is odd about this adjustment? It would seem to me odd to leave it out, since it's common sense that new businesses create jobs quite a long time before they are included in the sampling frame. Especially if you're trying to estimate new job creation, this seems extra obvious.

I guess I really don't buy "populist" critiques of these statistics. If Joe 6-pack doesn't get that the CPI and UE estimates are estimates, go talk to him, b/c of statistical agencies in the world, the BLS has to be counted among the best, by any standard--it's super transparent and user-friendly, and has been very open to change. Does it take a little brain power to figure out exactly what's going on? Yes. So what? That the numbers get used as if they were true on the face of it can hardly be laid at the BLS's doorstep.

Christian



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