The New Yorker:

In nominating an inexperienced MAGA partisan for commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Donald Trump is chipping away at an essential foundation of the American economy.

By John Cassidy

To some people, the Bureau of Labor Statistics may not sound like the most thrilling place to work. But many of its two thousand-plus employees, who produce the monthly jobs report, the Consumer Price Index, and other official economic releases, are proud data nerds. In a recent podcast, Erica Groshen, a Harvard-trained economist who served as the commissioner of the bureau from 2013 to 2017, relayed an inside joke at the agency. Question: How do you spot the extrovert at the B.L.S.? Answer: The extrovert is the one who looks at your shoes in the elevator.

Introverts or not, B.L.S. employees play a vital role in the U.S. economy, putting together statistics that policymakers, businesses, and households use to make decisions. To draw up its employment figures, the B.L.S. conducts monthly surveys of sixty thousand households and a hundred and twenty-one thousand employers. Some of the respondents take a while to reply. As more data come in, the agency updates its previous figures.

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