Facts still matter

Facts still matter, and the proof of that is becoming more and more evident as we continue to lose access to valuable federal government data.

Today is the day we would normally be getting information about the number of jobs employers added or cut last month. We would have learned if the number of Vermonters who are out of work rose or fell. And we should have gotten data on the ratio of job openings to the number of people looking for work, which could shed light on Vermonters’ employment prospects heading into the fall.

These state labor market facts are supposed to come to us each month from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) via the Vermont Department of Labor. For the last 16 years, Public Assets has been supplementing these monthly government reports with additional data and analyses intended to provide perspective on the plight of working Vermonters.

Today, however, we can’t tell you whether Vermont’s unemployment rate went up or down last month or jobs increased or decreased because the BLS stopped publishing new data when the federal government shut down October 1.

The story is similar at the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), which tracks state and national economic growth (Gross Domestic Product), personal income, and consumer spending. It stopped updating its website when the federal government’s spending authority ran out.

At least at the BLS and BEA it’s still possible to download information posted before the shutdown started. The data site for the U.S. Census Bureau, which started posting 2024 information just last month, has gone blank.

These are just three immediate examples of what we lose when we no longer have access to information that is essential to understanding the world we live in. There is no dearth of ideas or opinions about how to address unemployment or job creation or economic growth. But those are policy choices. First, we need to know the basic facts: Is unemployment going up or down? Is there a mismatch between the creation of new jobs and the supply of workers? Is the economy growing or shrinking, and how fast?

And it’s not just that data are important for good policy decisions; it’s that they drive real dollars. Census data determine what share of federal funding goes where (or it used to), unemployment rates determine the availability of benefits, and education data shape funding allocations.

The current loss of data from the shutdown is damaging and unnecessary; the BLS kept publishing through the shutdown of 2017-18. But with this administration we also face the risk of a permanent loss of data. There are warnings that the BLS may stop collecting labor market data if the shutdown continues much longer. President Donald Trump fired the BLS commissioner after the agency published information showing poor job growth. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed doing away with rules on green-house gas emissions. And there were numerous stories about the damage Elon Musk did to basic data collection when he used his chainsaw to clearcut federal agencies last spring.

One agency that took a big hit is of particular importance to Vermont at the moment. The National Center for Education Statistics, which had had a staff of more than 100, was down to two people in early September. Vermont has just embarked on yet another multi-year education reform project, which will benefit from up-to-date data and statistics that allow Vermont policymakers to compare our performance, costs, facilities, and staffing to those of other states. If NCES withers along with the Department of Education, Vermont may be left to guess about what has worked in other states and what hasn’t.

When we hear that National Guard troops have been deployed to Portland, Oregon, because it’s a war zone or that the economy is the best in the history of the United States, it’s tempting to give in to the notion that facts no longer matter. But obviously they do, or else there wouldn’t be such a concerted effort to conceal them.