The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Wednesday that a “technical problem” was the reason for delays in releasing last week’s jobs data. Jobs data are a major campaign issue and could have an impact on the November elections.
It’s a mere coincidence.
According to the Labor Department (to which the BLS belongs), a glitch in the time stamping process prevented the release of the data on job revisions at the scheduled time. The BLS stated that the BLS was unable to communicate with the public about how to answer their inquiries.
Since last week, the agency has taken steps to prevent a repeat of these problems. It also notified the Office of Inspector General of Labor Department which could lead to an investigation.
This is the third misstep in this agency’s history, and critics say that it could undermine trust in the agency.
Amazingly, three cluster blunders in a single year can undermine trust in an agency. The very idea is what I’m talking about!
Amazingly, there is still no trust left in these alphabet-soup federal agencies.
This latest glitch is very interesting.
About a half hour after the scheduled time, the job revisions from last year and for early 2024 were posted on a government site. The information was not released publicly until a few financial firms had it. This included the biggest downward revision in annual job creation for 15 years.
The gaffe seemed to be in direct opposition to the long-standing policy of the nonpartisan statistical agency, which is to ensure that all stakeholders, including financial traders, have equal access to information.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is non-partisan, just like the Department of Labor, which oversees it. It’s quite interesting that this latest bug has kept some labor statistics from the Biden/Harris Administration, which are embarrassing. This is just as the presidential election campaign is getting into full gear. Like most elections, this one will be influenced by the economy. The Biden/Harris Administration has a poor record when it comes to jobs. They like to trumpet the return to prior employment levels after COVID as “creating jobs”, instead of the nation returning to normality after being locked down for several months. What happened during the delay? Someone, like in the Harris campaign, was notified? They might have had a few hours or minutes to prepare their talking points.
WaPo can get right to the point with the terse style of X.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday that a technical issue caused delays last week in the scheduled release of jobs data that carried major implications for the economy and the presidential election. https://t.co/bRsjGctNzy
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 28, 2024
We have no idea what the motives are of anyone working at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or Department of Labor. We can’t tell if the delay was intentional or if there was a lack of urgency to find and fix the problem. Joe Biden probably doesn’t know what is going on. We can’t read minds, so there’s no way to know for sure.
It’s amazing how Democrats always seem to be the winners in these situations.
