“Numbers don’t lie,” but what if they aren’t accurate from the start? Recent findings from the American Statistical Association are sounding alarms about the future reliability of government-produced economic statistics. These stats guide decisions by Federal Reserve officials, the White House, and investors on critical matters like interest rates, jobless benefits, and billion-dollar investments.

• The Current Population Survey response rate, which covers 60K households monthly, has fallen to ~70% in 2023, down from ~90% a decade ago.
• Since 2009, funding for the Bureau of Labor Statistics has dropped by 18% in inflation-adjusted terms — and The New York Times reports a plan to reduce the survey’s coverage by 5K households next year due to increasing survey costs.

Counting on change: Ron Jarmin of the Census Bureau attributes the decline to “privacy concerns, challenges contacting respondents in cell phone households, and respondents’ availability when contact is made” (NYT). While current data remains reliable, the report urges Congress to boost funding to enhance data collection methods, including merging traditional surveys with private and administrative sources — a step already underway but needing faster and broader implementation.