I talked to a reporter last week who wanted to know if Donald Trump could manipulate economic data for political advantage. For example, could Trump make the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show a lower rate of unemployment or the Bureau of Economic Analysis show a higher rate of GDP growth, just before the election next fall?
I told the reporter that it would be extremely difficult. First, the people at these and other statistical agencies are dedicated professionals. It is inconceivable that if Trump told them to ignore the real data, and only give him good numbers, most of them would not balk.
Furthermore, since so much of the data are publicly available, it would be very hard to do this without being detected. For example, if Trump decided that he wanted to have the unemployment rate for October of 2020 — the last one before the election — to show a 0.5 percentage point drop, he couldn’t just have BLS lower the overall unemployment rate by half a percentage point with a swipe of his Sharpie.
We have data on unemployment rates, by race, by gender, by education and a variety of other characteristics. Trump would have to make all of these rates drop in a manner that was consistent with an overall drop in the unemployment rate of 0.5 percentage points.
And, it would be much more complicated than just reducing all of these unemployment rates by 0.5 percentage points to match the overall decline. Other items would have to be changed as well, such as duration measures, the share of voluntary and involuntary part-time workers, and the reasons workers give for being unemployed (quitting vs. being laid off).
Theoretically, someone could do something like this, but it would have to be a person who was very knowledgeable about the data. And, they would almost certainly need the cooperation of at least 20 or 30 people at the BLS.
While I find the prospect of Trump manipulating economic data highly unlikely, it is incredible that we have to think seriously about this possibility. All presidents will try to spin data to make their arguments more compelling, that is politics. But literally altering data to lie to the public about the state of the economy is a huge further leap.
Nonetheless, after the spectacle about the Hurricane Dorian projections, it is certainly plausible that Trump would try to manipulate the data on unemployment, GDP growth, wage growth and other key measures. Clearly, many of his top aides would also consider such manipulation to be acceptable, as was the case with Dorian. Apparently, most Republicans in Congress also think it’s fine that their president toys with official hurricane projections rather than just owning up to a mistake.
One of the bizarre twists on this issue is that some Republicans, including Donald Trump Jr., accused Obama of manipulating the unemployment rate. Of course, they had zero evidence for these accusations; they were just unhappy with data which made the economy look good under Obama.
As is often the case, when people make up lies about others, they reveal a great deal about themselves. In effect, they were telling us that they would have no qualms about manipulating government statistics if they had the opportunity.
The only positive side to this story is that we can be confident that Trump and the people around him lack the competence to manipulate economic data in a way that would not be completely obvious to anyone other than his hardcore supporters.
Just as we saw President Trump looking like a fool with his Sharpie-altered hurricane map, perhaps we will see him holding up a chart showing a half percentage point drop in the unemployment rate on the last Friday before next year’s election. But this will simply be the last act in the clown show, not a lie that any credible person will take seriously. (Fingers crossed.)
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.