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The US’s global reputation as a stable economic power and a reliable partner goes hand-in-hand with its long history of producing accurate data, dating back to the establishment of the BLS in 1884.

To be clear, there is no evidence that any data at BLS have been deleted or changed—to do so would incite panic in the markets, something Trump does not want to do.

The BLS is housed in the Department of Labor.

When I covered the BLS during the Bush and Obama administrations, I would occasionally get emails claiming that the data had been faked or massaged to make the numbers look better.

“I’m sorry—the BLS is not perfect, but the idea that there is any political intervention into what the economists there are doing is nonsense conspiracy theories.”