I have been informed that the article is behind a pay wall. That may depend on where you are, as I think many may obtain 10 free (with ads) Washington Post articles a month, as with some other newspapers.

Anyway, the author, Catherine Rampell, talked about the defunding of US statistical agencies for economic data. She gave the specific example that everyone at the office that "calculates" poverty guidelines used for determining eligibility for food stamp assistance and other programs has been "fired."

Hello James R Knaub. FYI, Catherine Rampell's article is also being discussed here:

https://community.amstat.org/discussion/opinion-wapo-71025-by-catherine-rampell-first-thing-we-do-lets-fire-all-the-statisticians

Some readers (especially Canadians) may remember that Stephen Harper's Conservative government did away with the long-form census form for a while, and not surprisingly, the quality of Statistics Canada data suffered.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/long-form-census-cancellation-taking-toll-on-statscan-data-1.1176466

Cheers,

Bruce

PS- James, I just noticed that you have posted in that amstat.org discussion. ;-)

Bruce - Statistics Canada is a really good outfit. I do belong to the American Statistical Association (ASA) and sometimes have contributed to ASA Connect and commented on Amstat News. (Regarding the subject of this thread, I noted above that "It was posted earlier on ASA Connect by another member of the American Statistical Association (ASA), where I saw it.")

In the CBC News article you attached, Bruce, it noted how much chaos was caused by last minute changes to the Canadian census regarding languages used. It showed that going from a 20% sample to a 100% census for certain questions did not necessarily improve results when the impact of questionnaire wording was not properly considered. People often do not realize that nonsampling error can be worse than sampling error. But this is just a taste of the chaos that can be caused if many programs are disrupted.

One of the Assistant Chief Statisticians of Canada is also a member of the ASA and is currently the chair of the ASA Survey Research Methods Section. It is hard to imagine how horrified the people are at Statistics Canada that the US would have such a wholesale mess, though Canadians have all been taken by surprise by the trade mess here, and I'm certain they are very disappointed in us after they have been such a good partner. Imagine though how freaked out many of us Americans are over what is happening at home! The ASA has been trying to persuade the executive branch not to cut statisticians, and asked the legislative branch to stop it, but loss of expertise throughout the Federal workforce is rampant. There is a lot of chaos coming to the US. Some of it will take some time to materialize, but it is coming.

James R Knaub

The degradation of official statistics in the United States is a serious and growing concern, especially when viewed in the context of shrinking budgets, political interference, and a broader devaluation of scientific and statistical expertise. As Catherine Rampell’s Washington Post piece aptly summarizes, undermining the institutions and professionals responsible for data collection weakens the country’s capacity to make informed policy decisions, allocate resources equitably, and maintain public trust. The risk isn’t merely about delays or data gaps — it's about the erosion of a system that underpins everything from monetary policy to public health preparedness.

Official statistics rely not only on robust funding but also on a deep foundation of expertise in sampling design, data integrity, methodological transparency, and sector-specific knowledge. Cuts to agencies like the Census Bureau or the Bureau of Labor Statistics threaten the continuity and quality of longitudinal data series — tools that economists, educators, healthcare professionals, and legislators depend on to understand trends and act responsibly. Once such infrastructure is weakened, it’s not easy to rebuild. Expertise lost through staffing shortages or brain drain can take years, even decades, to replace.

Moreover, politicizing or defunding statistical work undermines a cornerstone of democratic governance: neutral, high-quality data made available for public scrutiny and debate. Without it, not only is policy-making impaired, but public accountability is also weakened. Alarm bells are rightly being sounded by professionals in the field, and it’s critical that advocacy continues both within and outside the American Statistical Association. Preserving the integrity and strength of federal statistical agencies is not a niche concern — it is fundamental to the health, economic stability, and fairness of the nation.

ICYMI...

• https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/01/trump-firing-bureau-labor-statistics-chief-jobs-report-00488960
• https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/01/trump-fires-erika-mcentarfer-labor-statistics

The above articles, found by Bruce Weaver, note Trump getting rid of a competent economist [and statistician] (found on ResearchGate from when she worked at the US Census Bureau) because he didn't like the US BLS jobs report. This is not normal in the America previously known. [Add to this that the Smithsonian just took Trump's name off of a display of impeached presidents and gave a flimsy excuse for doing so.] Continued deterioration appears likely.

"Shared from BBC: Why were US job numbers which riled Trump revised down by so much?

"Check this out from the BBC:" https://bbc.com/news/articles/c9wyp2kk1e5o

From CNBC: 

"Trump's defense of firing BLS chief relies on twisted timeline": 

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/06/trump-bls-jobs-revisions-election.html 

Or

https://share.google/NnQ1NsCSetThn37jG 

So, like George Orwell's 1984, when Big Brother says something that happened in August before a November election means one thing, and later claims that August event came after the November election and means a different thing, whatever Big Brother says at the time is always True!  (not)

Statement by the Royal Statistical Society -

On ASA Connect (American Statistical Association) member, Denise Lievesley,

Honorary Fellow, Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, provided a link to a statement by the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) expressing concern regarding the dismissal of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner:

https://rss.org.uk/news-publication/news-publications/2025/general-news/a-statement-from-the-royal-statistical-society-on/

They say this "...undermines international trust in US statistics..." with negative global impact. Further it is noted that "...healthy democracy in the US..." is at risk without steps to repair the damage.

"Trump fired the BLS chief over the jobs report and the markets shrugged. That’s concerning." https://share.google/dGTapXnmxaJWvgsVl - From MSNBC, By Michael Madowitz, principal economist at the Roosevelt Institute

Note the parallel between Chairman Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution and Donald Trump's attack on the Federal workforce, universities, law firms, the Kennedy Center, and the Smithsonian.

Much of this probably repeats points that have already been raised, but I'll add it nevertheless.

https://www.factcheck.org/2025/08/no-evidence-for-trumps-claims-of-rigged-or-phony-job-numbers/

Factcheck.org looked rather thorough. There are some statements near the end that may need clarification, such as the following:

"The 2009 revision was a reduction of 902,000, or -0.7% of the original March 2009 estimate."

I would drop the negative sign. I think they meant the final number was only 0.7% of the preliminary number. Regardless, the point is that [perhaps because of nonresponse, etc.] BLS has had great difficulties with their preliminary jobs numbers. That is a big, big problem, but somewhat expected at times, at least in recent years. I would certainly address that, but it is nothing nefarious, just a result of people wanting numbers before they are ready.

It feels like our whole nation is traveling at 90-MPH, at night, with no headlights, and an over-indulged teenager at the steering wheel. The cops are nowhere to be seen. Where are the parents? By this I mean his followers in Congress. When will they have the courage to end their coddling, and say “STOP” to their spoiled brat? Before we crash. But does anyone see any reason for hope here?

I don’t think the alarm bells rung by statisticians and professional organizations mean anything to the current decision makers. It seems too self-serving to them.

I think the only hope is for influential national-level users of official statistics to forcibly stand up to this insanity. But to whom should they speak? The only apparent influencers seem to be the few presidential advisors and insiders who know how The System truly works.

Otherwise, at some point, perhaps too soon, our nation will crash. Hopefully, this will finally make today’s recklessness apparent. It’ll be up to us and our colleagues to rebuild.

P.S. BLS is obviously a world-class professional organization. However, with the benefit of hindsight, BLS could have done better. The colossal perturbations to The System, caused by the President’s rash and half-baked policy decisions, were apparent to all. The BLS statistical system does not seem to be robust to colossal perturbations. It’s too late now, but maybe improvements to the BLS system will temper the next fiasco.

Raymond said "I don’t think the alarm bells rung by statisticians and professional organizations mean anything to the current decision makers." But there should be a record to support the truth for anyone to build upon.

‘We’re losing our environmental history’: The future of government information under Trump

"As the director of the National Security Archive’s Climate Change Transparency Project, Rachel Santarsiero is in the business of monitoring and facilitating the flow of information from the government to the public. What she’s seeing now, in the first weeks of President Trump’s second administration, is throwing the continuity of that process into doubt.

“We’re really losing our history here; we’re losing our environmental history,” Santarsiero told the Bulletin last week...

https://thebulletin.org/2025/03/were-losing-our-environmental-history-the-future-of-government-information-under-trump/

But what Santarsiero and others are witnessing now goes far beyond that. Thousands of datasets have been removed from federal websites. Information on climate and the environment—from agencies like the EPA, the Council on Environmental Quality, NOAA, NASA, the State Department, and the Defense Department—has been deleted or become virtually impossible to find.

The administration’s wrecking-ball approach has raised profound questions about the integrity and future of vast amounts of information, public or not...

https://www.404media.co/archivists-work-to-identify-and-save-the-thousands-of-datasets-disappearing-from-data-gov/

https://thebulletin.org/2025/03/were-losing-our-environmental-history-the-future-of-government-information-under-trump/

Resistance to Trump's attack on scientific data

‘Digital ark’ set to safeguard climate data from Trump

In the weeks following the re-election of United States President Donald J Trump – who had made clear his intent to defund large swaths of America’s scientific infrastructure, especially anything to do with climate science – a team of computer scientists and management students in Montréal, Québec, in Canada, rushed to put the finishing touches to a central repository for climate research, data and other sustainability-related information.

The Sustainability Academic Network, or SUSAN, was conceived a year and a half ago as a one-stop, multifaceted platform where researchers could find information on the impact of climate change on forests, rivers and cities, and on plastics in the oceans and industrial greenhouse gas emissions, as well as research funding sources.

With Trump’s return to power, McGill University Professor Juan C Serpa, who leads the team of faculty and students, added another mission to SUSAN’s to-do list: “Protect scientific data in the United States from disappearing.”

According to an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, during Trump’s first administration, 26% of US government websites with terms like “climate change”, “clean energy” and “adaptation” went dark...

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250512102627549

750 HHS employees send signed letter to RFK Jr. asking him to stop spreading misinformation - ABC News https://share.google/hrRFQcJdvcwNS47Li

On ASA Connect there was a note from Dr. Chris Barker regarding RFK Jr allegedly insulting statisticians, and a link to a New York Times article behind a pay wall. That prompted me to search further and find the somewhat related ABC article above and another on CNN.

Lawrence O'Donnell again interviewed economist Paul Krugman earlier this month, and soon after, on approximately August 12, I sent a message to Dr. Krugman on Academia.edu, regarding that interview. I do not know if he received that message, which is found below.

-----------------------------------------------------

Prof. Krugman -

I greatly admire your contributions and have respect for Lawrence O'Donnell, but as a statistician, I have a problem with one point in your recent interview. Lawrence O'Donnell noted that the suggestion of only reporting BLS (jobs) data quarterly was incompetent. You noted it was against the law, so there is that. However, things have changed and if BLS simply cannot put out decent monthly data, that is an argument for changing that. I worked at the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), and they still use my work there, and I often disagreed that something quick was better than nothing.*

Consider the current BLS case. The numbers that incorrectly looked good came out monthly. The numbers which showed what was really going on came out later. Because bad numbers came out monthly, people could make bad decisions, and Trump's "policies" did not seem to be a problem for jobs. If they had not come out, wouldn't that have been better? Then Trump would have fussed but could not say numbers were "changed."

At the EIA, we made revisions. And I fussed that people needed to avoid making decisions based on noise. But wow! The revisions that BLS has are way out there. Anyway, there is plenty that needs correcting and incompetence does appear to be a huge problem in the current administration. But let's pick on the right things.

Thank you -

Jim Knaub

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James-Knaub

-----------------------------------------------------

* Actually, I recall that in general, it seems that in many organizations, people often seem to think "Something is better than nothing," but that is obviously not always true.

.....

Raymond L. Czaplewski noted on about August 15 (it currently says 6 days ago) in this thread that "The BLS statistical system does not seem to be robust to colossal perturbations" such as those caused by Trump. That seems true to me too. The corrected numbers showed the problem with jobs which one should have suspected would occur anyway.

So defending honest statistics is very helpful, in an effort to preserve the integrity of Official Statistics, but that includes noting that accuracy can be an honest issue. (Nonresponse is an issue impacting many surveys.)

Long ago I recall seeing in the news that some index had been revised and instead of a miniscule change in one direction, it was now determined to be a miniscule change in the other direction. I could just imagine 'decision makers' running off in one direction, and then careening off in the other direction, when in reality one should say that the number was basically unchanged since the previous period. With the huge jobs numbers revisions which are usual, and even bigger revisions on occasion, people need to realize that this can happen without being nefarious, and wait for the final numbers if accuracy is important. US statisticians have had a very good history of honesty. Further, nothing devious would generally be possible without a number of people being aware of it, and Franklin said that three people could keep a secret if two of them were dead. Further, the US Federal service has historically attracted civic minded people working for the common good. They should be supported, not maligned.

Proposed NASA Cuts Could Affect Public Health Research

NASA, the world’s foremost driver of space science and exploration, is not a public health agency. But in some ways, it is: The agency’s data is widely used in public health work. Will the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to the NASA budget hamper that effort?

https://undark.org/2025/08/18/nasa-public-health-research/

U.S. Flood Risk Maps Are Badly Outdated, But Trump Slows Reforms

Amid historic flooding this year, experts working in flood mitigation see a national system already decades behind. FEMA’s Technical Mapping Advisory Committee was working to modernize flood risk maps and had recommended major reforms last year. The group was disbanded by the Trump administration in January...

https://undark.org/2025/08/19/flood-map-reform-trump/

Cartography Between Worlds – The 2025 update to the system of national accounts re-opens debates on key economic measures

As the UN moves to update its System of National Accounts, Georgia Meyer outlines how these changes are affecting underlying approaches to measuring national economies and the new values they place on key economic measures...

"In March 2025 the United Nations Statistics Division updated its System of National Accounts (SNA) for the first since 2008. The SNA is the set of accounting standards, agreed by a number of international organisations, used to produce a set of statistics to describe how well a country’s economy is performing. Most notable of these is, of course, Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The updated SNA includes, for the first time, chapters on wellbeing and sustainability, and a chapter on digitalisation. In some ways these are welcome developments, which are the outcome of a long history of challenges to the validity of GDP as a useful measure. But the updated SNA also arrives at a time of marked strain on National Statistics Offices around the world as they wrestle with budget cuts, unwise political manoeuvring, competition from alternative data sources and waning trust..."

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2025/08/26/cartography-between-worlds-the-2025-update-to-the-system-of-national-accounts-re-opens-debates-on-key-economic-measures/

https://www.ft.com/content/1c919f11-2975-47be-ba1b-f6e2fa33fedf

NASA’s irreplaceable eyes on Earth

Private companies are increasingly gathering innovative and useful data on Earth’s environmental changes — but they can’t replace what NASA’s satellites do, argues space-enabled-research scholar Danielle Wood. “Nor should they,” she writes. Publicly funded missions offer trusted data, reliable benchmarks and coverage that isn’t based on who can afford to pay. That’s why US President Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to such missions in the 2026 budget is a mistake, she argues...

"Governments have a responsibility to collect long-term observations and archive them; to curate data products that use models to fill in gaps between observations; to use satellite data to answer questions related to public safety; to ensure that measurements by distinct satellites are calibrated and validated; and to incubate the next generation of improved satellite technology."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02685-6

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01217-6

The Incalculable Costs of Corrupt Statistics

Reliable statistics are the foundation of sound governance, which is why US President Donald Trump’s attacks on the Bureau of Labor Statistics have alarmed economists. While tampering with economic figures may yield short-term political benefits, in many recent cases, the long-term consequences have been catastrophic...

"History shows that while governments reap short-term political benefits by manipulating economic figures, the long-term costs can be enormous...

That is why economists have been alarmed by US President Donald Trump’s firing of Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Trump’s decision to replace her with E.J. Antoni, an inexperienced loyalist, has only fueled these concerns. The threat that such moves pose to investor confidence is especially acute in the US, which relies heavily on foreign capital and depends on the reliability of its national statistics as a key selling point.

But an equally grave, if subtler, threat is that undermining the credibility of economic data weakens government effectiveness. Even an administration focused on shrinking the government and cutting taxes must understand the country’s productive capacity and tax base, especially amid rising geopolitical tensions and growing security demands.

Trump’s partisan campaign against nonpartisan statistics, marked by dramatic cuts to data-collection programs, will therefore limit his administration’s ability to craft effective policies and demonstrate their success. While claims of “evidence-based policy” are sometimes overstated and often clash with political priorities, knowing whether government actions are working remains invaluable.

Moreover, when governments start believing their own distorted numbers, the consequences can be disastrous.

While we should not be naive about the political pressures surrounding sensitive figures like inflation and employment, independent and competent statistical agencies keep governments grounded in reality and enable businesses and investors to make informed decisions.

Unfortunately, official statistics across the OECD are in poor shape. Faced with shrinking budgets, agencies are struggling to keep up with rapid technological and structural shifts. Given that no government is going to shower them with more resources, statisticians are left with no choice but to modernize their data collection and processing procedures.

In that sense, there is a silver lining to Trump’s assault on America’s statistics infrastructure: it may prompt officials to rethink how they measure economic performance and to embrace new technologies that make it easier to sift through massive amounts of information. Such a shift could be disruptive, but it is long overdue."

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-war-on-data-could-have-profound-consequences-by-diane-coyle-2025-08

Let me remind everyone that copyright laws do not generally allow more than a short excerpt, even when of course showing the source, unless permission has been obtained. People should read from the source other than perhaps showing a short excerpt, if that.

Also, a few words of your own to note the general idea being discussed at the link provided could serve the discussion.

Ok, I do respect your recommendation dear James R Knaub .

Prof. Ljubomir Jacić above provided a link to a recent Project Syndicate article by Cambridge Professor Diane Coyle who noted the problems that come with corrupted Official Statistics, but also noted that Official Statistics in the OECD, and apparently elsewhere, have been of lower quality now. (I think one problem is nonresponse.) As I stated earlier in a note on an interview of Prof. Paul Krugman by Lawrence O'Donnell, the highly inaccurate preliminary numbers published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics were the numbers which did not show what problems were being caused by the Trump Administration, so when the better, final number was released, it was questioned.

So there is the dual problem of (1) politics causing administrations to only want favorable numbers to be released, and (2) the low accuracy of numbers, particularly preliminary ones, are confusing the issue and are a problem of their own. 

I thank Prof. Jacić for this Project Syndicate article and plan to pass it on to the Director of Science Policy at the American Statistical Association (ASA).

The following was just posted on ASA Connect by Ron Wasserstein, Executive Director, The American Statistical Association:

https://www.amstat.org/docs/default-source/amstat-documents/communications-from-the-executive-director/sept10_li_2-post.pdf

https://www.amstat.org/docs/default-source/amstat-documents/communications-from-the-executive-director/sept10_li-post.pdf

They are concerning US Federal statistics.

Thanks dear James R Knaub for sharing this document.