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That's all well and good in theory, but job reports data over recent years have noticeably shifted towards downward monthly revisions. Prior to the pandemic res

That's all well and good in theory, but job reports data over recent years have noticeably shifted towards downward monthly revisions. Prior to the pandemic response, the graph [1] looks much more balanced with regards to positive and negative decisions. [1] https://www.apmresearchlab.org/blog/how-abnormal-are-the-revisions-in-this-months-jobs-report https://www.apmresearchlab.org/blog/how-abnormal-are-the-rev...

jeffbee 7mo ago
Sure, but it's totally ridiculous to post about that without discussing the survey response rate, which is the cause of that drift. People are attributing it to political meddling, and that is baseless. Naturally all of this metadata about the BLS surveys is available for free from the BLS, so you can just go look at it.
- _heimdall 7mo ago
  Interesting that you're claiming this is baseless without providing any sources for your alternative. How do you know that (a) the response rate is down meaningfully and (b) that data shows a strong correlation or causation between the two?
JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
> but job reports data over recent years have noticeably shifted towards downward monthly revisions. Prior to the pandemic response, the graph [1] looks much more balanced with regards to positive and negative decisions Yes. The reasons for this are well documented. Changing methodology for the preview estimates is rigorous. That means our published estimates lag best estimates, something the primary sources note in every release if one gets past the headlines. Also, if you have one year of massive job gains and four years of flat and falling, you’ll spend most of your epoch biased one way. Again, not a sign of methodological problems. Just a predictable methodological artifact that folks are supposed to be able to incorporate before using, much less emotionally reacting to, the data.
- _heimdall 7mo ago
  Why would the shift to a new methodology bias the estimates to one end? I would expect a new methodology to make comparisons of data between the two systems to potentially be unhelpful, but I wouldn't expect a valid methodology to bias one way or another. Related, I wouldn't expect past data to bias a current estimate. If 6 or 12 months of positive growth biases the next prediction it falls into the hot hands fallacy. It isn't predicting based on current predictions, its predicting based on recent past behavior and extrapolating forward. This only makes sense to do if the data is not yet available, and even then the extrapolation isn't a useful estimate of current conditions.
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    > If 6 or 12 months of positive growth biases the next prediction it falls into the hot hands fallacy It’s a sample of a sample. The full sample is the final release. The early results are the preliminary releases. When firms change things they take longer to respond. So whichever way the economy is moving, there will be bias in that direction. If the economy is turning, you won’t know direction. If it’s accelerating or slowing down you don’t know magnitude. Sometimes context clues can help. Sometimes they can’t. There is no known statistical treatment for intuiting the missing data before one has it11
    - _heimdall 7mo ago
      We agree here, and I am going a step further saying that the initial numbers are useless and are little more than throwing opinionated darts. Numbers shouldn't be released until they meet some reasonable level of response and statistical validity. Given that they do release numbers today, I judge them as early and either inaccurate and useless or politically motivated to push markets while there's no meaningful data to contradict them.
      - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
        > the initial numbers are useless and are little more than throwing opinionated darts You’re still concluding from ignorance. They are not. A better question would be ask to whom they’re useful and how. Like, if a fire is burning in a neighborhood, every sighting is valuable. You don’t always need to wait for a comprehensive picture before being able to do anything. > I judge them as early and either inaccurate and useless or politically motivated to push markets while there's no meaningful data to contradict them That’s wrong. But it seems to be a common error. Maybe the solution is to make these numbers available only to gatekeep these numbers. Policymakers, academics, enterprises and banks can get a rarefied sheet for a fee. But the public doesn’t get PDFs, much less public reporting. > while there's no meaningful data to contradict them There are bajillions of them. ADP. State reports. Private surveys. Fed studies. That said, I’m leaning towards your view—maybe these data aren’t best made broadly public.

jeffbee 7mo ago

Sure, but it's totally ridiculous to post about that without discussing the survey response rate, which is the cause of that drift. People are attributing it to political meddling, and that is baseless. Naturally all of this metadata about the BLS surveys is available for free from the BLS, so you can just go look at it.

_heimdall 7mo ago
Interesting that you're claiming this is baseless without providing any sources for your alternative. How do you know that (a) the response rate is down meaningfully and (b) that data shows a strong correlation or causation between the two?

JumpCrisscross 7mo ago

> but job reports data over recent years have noticeably shifted towards downward monthly revisions. Prior to the pandemic response, the graph [1] looks much more balanced with regards to positive and negative decisions Yes. The reasons for this are well documented. Changing methodology for the preview estimates is rigorous. That means our published estimates lag best estimates, something the primary sources note in every release if one gets past the headlines. Also, if you have one year of massive job gains and four years of flat and falling, you’ll spend most of your epoch biased one way. Again, not a sign of methodological problems. Just a predictable methodological artifact that folks are supposed to be able to incorporate before using, much less emotionally reacting to, the data.

_heimdall 7mo ago
Why would the shift to a new methodology bias the estimates to one end? I would expect a new methodology to make comparisons of data between the two systems to potentially be unhelpful, but I wouldn't expect a valid methodology to bias one way or another. Related, I wouldn't expect past data to bias a current estimate. If 6 or 12 months of positive growth biases the next prediction it falls into the hot hands fallacy. It isn't predicting based on current predictions, its predicting based on recent past behavior and extrapolating forward. This only makes sense to do if the data is not yet available, and even then the extrapolation isn't a useful estimate of current conditions.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  > If 6 or 12 months of positive growth biases the next prediction it falls into the hot hands fallacy It’s a sample of a sample. The full sample is the final release. The early results are the preliminary releases. When firms change things they take longer to respond. So whichever way the economy is moving, there will be bias in that direction. If the economy is turning, you won’t know direction. If it’s accelerating or slowing down you don’t know magnitude. Sometimes context clues can help. Sometimes they can’t. There is no known statistical treatment for intuiting the missing data before one has it11
  - _heimdall 7mo ago
    We agree here, and I am going a step further saying that the initial numbers are useless and are little more than throwing opinionated darts. Numbers shouldn't be released until they meet some reasonable level of response and statistical validity. Given that they do release numbers today, I judge them as early and either inaccurate and useless or politically motivated to push markets while there's no meaningful data to contradict them.
    - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      > the initial numbers are useless and are little more than throwing opinionated darts You’re still concluding from ignorance. They are not. A better question would be ask to whom they’re useful and how. Like, if a fire is burning in a neighborhood, every sighting is valuable. You don’t always need to wait for a comprehensive picture before being able to do anything. > I judge them as early and either inaccurate and useless or politically motivated to push markets while there's no meaningful data to contradict them That’s wrong. But it seems to be a common error. Maybe the solution is to make these numbers available only to gatekeep these numbers. Policymakers, academics, enterprises and banks can get a rarefied sheet for a fee. But the public doesn’t get PDFs, much less public reporting. > while there's no meaningful data to contradict them There are bajillions of them. ADP. State reports. Private surveys. Fed studies. That said, I’m leaning towards your view—maybe these data aren’t best made broadly public.