It's the best data that's available at the time. It's been collected in a consistent fashion for a significant duration of time. To understand how a new methodo

It's the best data that's available at the time. It's been collected in a consistent fashion for a significant duration of time. To understand how a new methodology would differ, we'd want to run a new process in parallel for a couple years. A few notes from an interview on the Odd Lots podcast, interviewing Bill Beach, former head of the BLS: * Response rates among surveyed employees are roughly: Month 1 68% Month 2 83% Month 3 93-94% * Large employers tend to respond sooner, and are staffed to handle these requests better. -------- April 2025 interview: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-of-americas-most-important-economic-data-is-decaying/id1056200096?i=1000705520320 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-of-americas-most-... August 2025 interview (after BLS head statistician was fired): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bill-beach-on-how-trump-just-politicized-us-economic-data/id1056200096?i=1000720631550 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bill-beach-on-how-trum... Some notes and a transcript: https://www.crisesnotes.com/bloomberg-odd-lots-podcast-transcript-an-interview-with-former-bls-commissioner-bill-beach/ https://www.crisesnotes.com/bloomberg-odd-lots-podcast-trans...