Tyler Schipper, an economist and associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of St. Thomas, spoke to MinnPost about the politicization of labor statistics. President Donald Trump’s recent firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner caused fears of eroding public trust in data.
From the story:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is one of a constellation of government agencies that collect, analyze, interpret and publish economic data. Its publications include key reports on inflation, unemployment, wages and job creation, based on tens of thousands of monthly survey responses from households and employers. ...
The data remains sound, though, and politically manipulating it would be “a near impossibility,” said Tyler Schipper, an associate professor of economics and data analytics at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.
“At every level, an individual is working closely with lots of other statisticians. It would take a sprawling conspiracy, where you try and convince a couple hundred highly educated people that instead of getting the right answer, they should agree on a different answer and tell the outside world that’s the truth. I think that is far-fetched at best,” he said.
