government data

Fewer than half of the businesses asked to participate in jobs surveys actually answer. That can lead to biased data.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is no longer gathering data from parts of New York, Nebraska, and Utah.

You take it with a grain of salt and find proxy data.

There’s been a “targeted, surgical removal of data sets, or elements of data sets, that are not aligned with the administration’s priorities,” said Denice Ross at the Federation of American Scientists.

Just 30% of respondents did some form of socializing on an average day in 2024 — down 8% from a decade ago.

GDP and other hard data are more comprehensive and focus on the past. While anecdotal evidence is more fickle, but can show early signs of an economic shift.

They’re backward-looking indicators, but economists can’t know where we are unless they know where we’ve been.

Yale’s Martha Gimbel tracks frequently updated information like weekly unemployment claims and private-sector reports.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure. And under the Trump administration, a number of data sets that investors and businesses use have gone missing.

One outcome of the “Middle Eastern or North African” (MENA) box will be a clearer picture of economic conditions in Arab American communities.