Given the employment report that

[moniss]

was released that showed rosy numbers for September it is hard not to conclude that the books were "cooked". We have all seen the announcements by companies of big layoffs and job cuts. So we are now clearly in the land of rosy proclamations while things get worse. We'll see if the smart people on Wall Street see that consumer demand that has collapsed, the reduction in manufacturing activity etc. is enough to have them realize that AI doesn't buy cars and houses and doesn't write checks to pay monthly bills.

Maybe somebody will realize that $7.99 per pound for ground chuck isn't sustainable in a food store where everything else is higher as well and in the average consumers life where everything, including the roof over your head, costs more and more. But I expect that before any real improvement comes the wizards in business and government will first find a way to blame all of this on the meager advancements in the minimum wage that have happened so far. They'll do this to claim the need to curtail any further advances.

Never a problem for them allowing advances, aka exploitative greed, in prices but supposedly advances in wages are the work of evil.

[Wiz Imp]

1. If people would read the actual jobs release they would have read this statement at the very beginning

Total nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 119,000 in September but has shown little change since April

Anyone who believes that Trump would "fake the numbers" in such a way that they admit that jobs have changed little over the the past 5 months I would have to say legitimately have TDS.

For the record, jobs have increased by just 193,000 from April through September. Those are terrible numbers. That's an average of less than 39,000 per month. During the 12 years of the Obama and Biden administrations, the average monthly job gain was 192,000. If you remove Obama's first year where he had to deal with the effects of the Bush created Great Recession, the average was 242,000. In that context, September's job growth was extremely weak, and the cumulative average over the past 5 months has been downright pathetic.

There is nothing remotely questionable about these data. The lifetime career statisticians will NEVER allow manipulated data to be released without it being called out. People need to stop the conspiracy theories. You end up smearing dedicated honest civil servants who do their job honestly every day. It's been pointed out many times, that the statistics put out by the administration can not be faked without it being called out by whistleblowers and statisticians who understand how the data are developed.

Yet many here continue to insist that every number released by the administration must necessarily be fake. Even when those numbers are not positive. The idea that the Trump administration would be publishing fake data and that data would still paint them in a very poor light is insane. I mean, the point in faking the data would be to make the numbers look GOOD. The data the BLS has released this year has not once been better than mediocre and at least 75% to 80% of it has been downright AWFUL.

This year's October numbers would have been really bad given that all those Federal employees who took the deferred resignation offered early in the year should have come off the Federal payroll in October, creating a massive Federal Government job loss. Given that October data collection was not performed, I'll be curious how they come up with the estimates for October. (They aren't doing an official release for October given that data collection was mostly suspended during the shutdown. But they still have to come up with an estimated level to link off of for the November estimates.)

See this from the release:

Publication of September data was delayed by more than 6 weeks because of a lapse in federal appropriations. Collection of September data for the household survey had been completed in accordance with our normal schedule prior to the federal government shutdown. September estimates from the establishment survey include both data collected on our normal schedule
prior to the shutdown and also September data that businesses self-reported electronically during the shutdown. As a result, the establishment survey collection rate (80.2 percent) for this initial release of September 2025 data is higher than usual.

BLS will not publish an October 2025 Employment Situation news release. Establishment survey data for October 2025 will be published with the November 2025 data. Household survey data were not collected for the October 2025 reference period due to a lapse in appropriations and will not be collected retroactively. For both surveys, the collection period for November 2025 data will be extended, and extra processing time will be needed. The Employment Situation news release for November 2025 is scheduled to be published on Tuesday, December 16, 2025, at 8:30 a.m. (ET).

[moniss]

2. First of all the report was characterized as

"better than expected" and not by me. You can drop your TDS crap since this is an administration that has shown they will and have lied about literally anything and everything. You insistence that the point of cooking numbers is to make them look "good" is pure nonsense since it is also done to make things "not as bad" as any examination of shenanigans with accounting or government "reports" has shown over the many, many decades.

As I said it is not just the numbers but the verbiage and combined with other reporting regarding job cuts, layoffs and reductions in manufacturing you can spin your tale all you like but the presentation of the report and the characterization by the government don't square with what is seen. But some people who accept this sort of thing probably also believe that Saudi Arabia has invested 21 trillion dollars in the US in just the last few months as claimed by Crumb the 1st.

[Wiz Imp]

3. That's right, don't let the facts get in the way of your TDS

the presentation of the report and the characterization by the government don't square with what is seen

You ignored it previously, so I'll post it for you again. This is the "characterization" by the Government of the September Jobs report. The first sentence of the release:

Total nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 119,000 in September but has shown little change since
April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

If you think pointing out that jobs have "shown little change since April" is the government spinning things more positively than reality, then I can't help you. Pointing out that jobs have basically been flat over 5 months is in no way a positive characterization. Using the phrase "edged up" for the September movement is the exact opposite of spin.

Also, the format of this release has not changed in decades. There is never ANY spin in BLS releases. Just factual reporting.

I've posted here dozens of times about my career as a statistician working on these programs. It is 100% guaranteed that the administration is not "cooking" the numbers put out by BLS. If you can't accept that, then again, I can't help you. BLS has never engaged in "shenanigans" with the data they report. Accusing them of doing so is beyond insulting, it's despicable to smear honest hard working career civil servants.

And if you think the trump administration would FAKE numbers as bad as the jobs numbers from BLS have been this year, then you're beyond hope.

[moniss]

4. When this was released it was ballyhooed as being

"much better" than anticipated and "not as bad as expected". So just drop your attitude. I made no reference to specific parts or methodology in the report only that the report is "cooked" in it's claim that the numbers are rosy and that was how it was described when released. Now if you want to play analyst and reference the numbers actually being crappy then it simply proves the point that it is a false representation to release a report and laud it while actually it is anything but. By the way really nobody cares about your claim to be a statistician. Lawyers know how to weasel and stats people, like accountants for example, know how to make numbers do anything they want. Things like Enron happen despite all of the so called "honest" numbers people. Liars exist in all professions and at all levels in the private and public sector. You may not believe that but the court cases over the years show it to be true.

[Wiz Imp]

5. {sigh}

You truly don't let facts get in the way of your predisposed opinions. Congratulations! Most people care about facts. But not you! NO, you know more than all the statisticians and economists in the world who will vouch for the BLS as being the best statistical agency in the world.

For the record, the BLS made no claims about the report being "better than expected". They don't do that because they a APOLITICAL and always have been. Keep bad mouthing them if you like, it only succeeds in displaying your ignorance.

I'm not sure who you're all up in arms about saying things were better than expected. I'll assume it was Trump himself or one or more of his political appointees. What do you expect? Trump lies about everything. So of course he's going to lie and say they're great. Who fucking cares?

Trump or Trump political appointees pretending the data looks better than it actually doesn't is not "cooking the books". It's called spin or in Trump's case flat out lying and he has always done it and will continue to do it.

Your complaint should be with the media, who mostly dutifully reports Trump's lies without question. I wrote a post a couple months ago pointing out how the media headlines would consistently point out when jobs were higher than analysts expectations, but NEVER mentioned it when they were lower. That's an issue with the media not the data itself. The data itself is now, and always has been legitimate. Will the Trump administration at some point try to release manipulated data? Of course, absolutely everyone in the world has expressed their fear that he would. The thing is though, if and when he does that, it will be very obvious and there will be hundreds if not thousands of people pointing it out. Until that happens, the data being published by BLS continues to be honest whether you want to accept it or not.

One final thing, before I end and ignore you forever in the future. HOW DARE YOU! question my honesty and integrity. I was a government statistician for about 35 years and never once in that time did I falsely manipulate data. And never once did the statistical agency I worked for ever lie about or spin the data. Our job was to produce actual, factual data period. The facts and only the facts. Did politicians use our data for misleading purposes at times? Absolutely, and it drove us crazy when they did so, but there was nothing we could do to stop it. Occasionally, one of us would have to write a letter to the editor or an opinion article to set the record straight, but we could not stop anyone from using our data for nefarious purposes. In the end, we knew we were doing a public service by producing honest, accurate data for those people who needed it for their jobs. For you to question the integrity of me and my co-workers is despicable and disgusting.

And with that, I'm done with you. It's already apparent I've wasted my time on trying to educate someone who is so proud of their ignorance. You have a good life! Bye!

[moniss]

6. The knowledge that you are

leaving me alone breaks my heart. Almost as much as me trying to get someone to realize that the numbers not basically moving in the last 6 months in an economy that is tanking is not rational and goes against the expectations and predictions by the Wall Street experts for what those numbers would be. But since you started off your response to my OP with a personal insult I won't leave you with one myself. I'm sure you get plenty of those as it is.