When the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Employment Report for September 2012, the official unemployment rate (U-3) unexpectedly dropped from 8.1 to 7.8 percent
(http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf). This was very hard for many politicians and a few angry men to grasp.
For months now, we have been subject to politicians who would like to argue against the current administration citing that the true unemployment rate is much higher (this is because they like to quote a much broader unemployment figure that includes people who are currently working part time and would like to work full time in addition to those who have given up looking for work, this is known as U-6). The reason this is done is because U-6 is always much larger than the official unemployment rate and 14.7 percent sounds much scarier than 7.8 percent. My main criticism of this approach is that the people citing U-6 should mention what it has looked like historically and how it has been changing rather than a single month figure (most people probably do not realize that U-6 was at 17.2 percent in October 2009, see below).
Although I do not approve of the previous tactics, they are far better than the statements made by Jack Welch and Donald Trump following the release of the employment report. Jack Welch tweeted “Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers.” Donald Trump said “everyone knows he (Obama) didn’t want to lay off certain workers in certain categories, and that’s been well-documented and well-reported that he didn’t want to lay off certain workers in certain categories until after the election. I mean, that’s monkeying with the numbers.”
These two “businessmen” are stating that the Obama Administration is altering the employment report in an attempt to get re-elected. This is a ridiculous accusation given that the workers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics are long term civil servants that are not political appointees. As an economist, I take the reporting of data very seriously. I think we could have very serious debates about the potential biases of economic data and the volatility of month to month data. However, to accuse the United States of manipulating economic data to promote a political agenda is offensive and an indictment of all economic data. If you hear people repeating this drivel about the government manipulating economic data for political purposes, please provide them with the truth.