I think one component is 5 years ago there was little reason to doubt the official BLS numbers or even most reports from the federal government like FBI crime s

I think one component is 5 years ago there was little reason to doubt the official BLS numbers or even most reports from the federal government like FBI crime statistics. The official/headlining unemployment rates have always been based on data points that were not ideal or have evolved and need review. For example, the debate between U-2 and U-6 rates as the goto number in a post 2008 crisis economy to better count under-employment or those working 2-3 jobs or gig roles. Maybe we do need to overhaul reporting and weight given to certain unemployment types to align with these changes. Any updates need to be reviewed, tracked, and rolled out slowly as the monthly reports carry a huge impact. The recent big change change is, of course, an administration that will replace career non partisan officials with yes men loyalists or simply comment on and politicise things that were left apolitical. You can see this most egregiously early on with how FBI crime data was withheld to (maybe) further political goals. Instead of letting the experts create and send out reports on the same data points as the last decade for easy comparison, or working on changes based on their expert decisions and long term studies, we have departments driven by optics and value or loyalty to the president above all else. Has this impacted BLS and BLS data? I'm not sure. Has this corroded trust and reliability of BLS and other government reports? I'd say yes, absolutely. It took lawsuits by media to reveal who got PPP loans, trillions of taxpayer dollars, with millions going to administration friends and even cabinet members. It took lawsuits to get the same FBI crime data we got under Obama. Who is to say we don't need to sue BLS for the underlying data they report on to confirm it lines up? As far as I know from my studies in economics and rabid news reading over the last decade, the BLS has never been a political department or had their reports used as more than statistics by the president. It has not had numbers criticized or called wrong by the president. It has been a wonderfully data oriented group left independent like the Fed. Trump has been unprecedented in his attacks against his own government. He also pulled a 180 after the election, railing on Obama for jobs numbers that were, of course, perfect once Trump was sworn in or vice versa. U-3 vs U-6 unemployment: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-unemployment-rate-u6-vs-u3.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-... Trump and the BLS: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-23/trump-move-could-spark-another-exodus-of-u-s-jobs-researchers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-23/trump-mov... Changes to FBI reporting: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-first-fbi-crime-report-issued-under-trump-is-missing-a-ton-of-info/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-first-fbi-crime-rep... PPP data lawsuits: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/12/sba-foia-lawsuit/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/12/sba-foia-...