People often ask if the Fed is political, and therefore predisposed to lowering interest rates before the election. The Labor Department and Bureau of Labor Statistics deserves equal questioning.

Their job growth statistics are untrustworthy, to put it politely. They are almost always revised downwards after Biden had a chance to gloat. A Labor Department report encompassing annual benchmark revisions to the nonfarm payroll numbers was released on August 8, 2024, covering the period of April 2023 through March, 2024. It showed actual non-farm job growth was nearly 30% lower than previously reported.

On October 4, just an hour ago as I type, the Labor Department issued its September jobs report. Surprise!  They claim the U.S. economy added 254K jobs for the month. That’s dubiously robust; for context, it is the strongest report in six months, and way above the average monthly gain for the prior 12 months.

Is it coincidence this report is so apparently favorable right before the election?

One may reasonably speculate that the burrowed bureaucrats and wayward statisticians that concoct these figures don’t want Trump and Vance cleaning house. Trump has already indicated that Elon Musk could have a role in a government efficiency commission. Judging by their constant and continuous inaccuracy, personnel in the Labor Department and BLS have reason to worry -- their products indicate great inefficiency.

The next jobs report will be released on November 1, just a few days before the election. Even if the previous report is revised downwards -- again -- a lot of early voters will have cast their ballot. But even an optimist has reason to be jaded -- there may well be another upside “surprise,” with downward revisions cascading after the election. If, for some reason they can’t fabricate the numbers to favor the Dem incumbents, I’m sure some computer network gremlin will enable them to delay release of revisions until later.

Those numbskull number crunchers don’t want Trump, Vance, or Musk -- job-cutting Elon, for heaven’s sake -- shining the light of disinfectant throughout their dirty and dark corridors, thereby revealing their shady schemes, rather than sound statistical methods.

Image: BLS