Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 4d

The entirety of BLS is furloughed until the government re-opens.

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 4d

Before I led BLS I was not as acutely aware of how many businesses, firms, and individual jobs depend on a stream of public use data. One estimate is that the $2 billion the US spends on economic data creates a $200+ billion industry of 'data-intensive' businesses. pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/...

pubs.aeaweb.org

2 9 35

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 4d

Cool paper - so interesting that the explosion in homeschooling happened largely after the schools reopened.

1 5

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 5d

Joey, you cannot post a pic of Alpacas in cute outfits hanging out in DC without letting the rest of know where this is happening so we can be there

1 10

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 5d

Big picture, we do not know the exact answer to 'how good/bad is the ADP data if BLS data disappears?' but the private data providers themselves are pretty clear in every conference/panel that the quality of their own data will erode if they cannot benchmark to BLS estimates.

4 22

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 5d

I think what Justin is trying to say here is that ADP uses BLS data in it's revision process to improve the correlation between the two series over time, but the correlation between the initial ADP estimate and BLS payroll growth is pretty low.

1 2 17

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 6d

Depends on how venerable the site is if it can't be monitored or maintained, and if there are any contractors who can work on it while the feds are furloughed.

1 9

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 6d

Given changes in the break-even pace of job gains due to changing immigration policy, the clearest signal of labor market strength right now is the unemployment rate. And ADP tells us nothing about the unemployment rate.

1 8

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 6d

Self-employed workers are included in the CPS. It's about 10% of the workforce.

1 2

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 25d

Just pointing out the incoherence of ‘we must replace BLS leadership because of falling response rates’ and ‘we aren’t going to let you stem falling response rates by following up when they don’t respond’. (Census collects data for BLS too.)

Phil Rocco @philiprocco.bsky.social · 26d

Extent of the threat to the integrity of the 2030 Census in the House funding beggars belief. Not only did the Committee narrowly approve eliminating undocumented persons from apportionment counts (in violation of the 14th A), it also handcuffs Bureau’s ability to do nonresponse followup. 1/2

3 20 63

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 28d

My one quibble is with the immigration point. I’ve never understood why they think there is a wedge there. But QCEW first estimate will be revised up; that’s been the pattern since the pandemic and UI modernization has put real strain on data collection there

1 7

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 28d

This is a good summary.

David Wessel @davidmwessel.bsky.social · 28d

Goldman Sachs on the benchmark revisions to payroll growth.

3 8 35

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 28d

The big story here is of an agency of dedicated statisticians and public servants working tirelessly to improve economic data in a climate of budgetary cuts to data collection. They have been very innovative in meeting that mandate. But we should also just fund our economic infrastructure.

Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 28d

Important to remember that thanks to the dedicated public servants at BLS, employment estimates have become MORE accurate over time

And the final version of the preliminary revision reported today will probably be smaller when it is incorporated early next year

Ernie Tedeschi @ernietedeschi.bsky.social · 28d

The preliminary benchmark revision of -911K amounts to -0.6% to March 2025 payroll employment. Combined with 2-month revisions, recent total revisions are big but hardly unprecedented, & smoothed over the business cycle the payroll survey has gotten more accurate over time.

2 29 120

Reposted by Erika McEntarfer

Ernie Tedeschi @ernietedeschi.bsky.social · 28d

The preliminary benchmark revision of -911K amounts to -0.6% to March 2025 payroll employment. Combined with 2-month revisions, recent total revisions are big but hardly unprecedented, & smoothed over the business cycle the payroll survey has gotten more accurate over time.

1 24 65

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 28d

The two series have very different seasonality.

9

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 29d

Most advanced nations have pretty high quality economic data but the US stands out on utility - more high frequency data and richer detail.

6

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 29d

I’m allowed a patriotic flourish after seven months of defending the agency from DOGE, y’all.

1 1 44

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 29d

Your daily reminder that US economic data is of extremely high quality even when compared to other advanced nations and the envy of the world

The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 29d

Exclusive: The White House is preparing a report laying out alleged shortcomings of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs data, five weeks after President Trump fired the chief of the agency

White House Prepares Report Critical of Statistics Agency

The assessment would follow President Trump’s firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

on.wsj.com

21 250 1.1K

Reposted by Erika McEntarfer

Julia Coronado @jc-econ.bsky.social · 29d

The first wave of the survey underpinning nonfarm payrolls has seen falling response rates, but in contrast to accusations the BLS has "failed to take corrective action" several targeted steps have kept 2nd & 3rd wave response rates at or above 90%--Gold standard data from dedicated public servants

4 17 80

Reposted by Erika McEntarfer

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · Sep 7

APOLLO: “.. Census data is starting to show a slowdown in AI adoption for large companies.

“.. The US Census Bureau conducts a biweekly survey of 1.2 million firms, and one question is whether a business has used AI tools .. to help produce goods or services in the past two weeks.”

34 80 400

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · Sep 5

It’s entirely possible this is because BLS was in the news so much while the survey was in the field.

3 2 10

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · Sep 5

The sudden decline in the pace of job growth also impacted the seasonal factors, pushing back some of the weakness into May

5 70

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · Sep 5

The larger-than-usual downward revision last month was in large part driven by a negative skew in the job growth distribution among late reporting firms. That’s unusual, but it’s happened before when the pace of job growth slows rapidly. This print is more evidence that was the case

Ben Casselman @bencasselman.bsky.social · Sep 5

U.S. employers added 22,000 jobs in August and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3 percent.
Data: www.bls.gov/news.release...
Live coverage: www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09... #NumbersDay

Employment Situation Summary - 2025 M07 Results

www.bls.gov

9 140 390

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · Sep 3

As I understand how the vehicle works it would move funds from USDA (for the FLS) to BLS (to expand OEWS)

1 8

Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · Sep 3

Emergency act I think

1 3