Editorial | Insulating statistics

There are no claims, insofar as The Gleaner is aware, of Jamaica’s national data collectors deliberately falsifying statistics, or being politically pressured to do so. If there are flaws or shortcomings or inadequacies in national statistics, it is more likely to be the result of capacity constraints than malfeasance on the part of officials.

Nonetheless, given last week’s firing of Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the US Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) because President Trump didn’t like the latest jobs the agency reported, it might be timely for Jamaica to revisit an old white paper, published in 2007 under former finance minister, Omar Davies, to strengthen the island’s data collection regime. Among the proposals of that white paper was for the creation of a Statistics Commission whose functions would include establishing data collection priorities and overseeing quality assurance mechanisms to ensure “official statistics are trustworthy and responsive to public needs”.

“Good statistics are one of the underpinnings of democracy,” Dr Davies wrote in a preface to the white paper.

Indeed, a review of the Davis white paper, and its review by Parliament, should be an early, and urgent undertaking by the administration that emerges from next month’s general election.

CRITICAL GATHERER OF DATA

In America, the BLS falls under the US Department of Labour and is among the most crucial gatherers of data on the US economy. Until now, considered independent and non-partisan, the agency tracked job creation and other labour market data, such as unemployment, wages and compensation and movements in consumer and producer prices.

What gained Mr Trump’s ire was the BLS’s report on Friday that the US economy added only 73,000 jobs in July, against a forecast for 109,000. It also revised downward, by 250,000, to 33,000, the number of new jobs created in May and June.

Downward revisions of job-creation figures are not unique, taking place as new, updated information becomes available, although last week’s reversal, outside of the COVID-19 period, was among the largest for several years. Analysts, however, say that the numbers were consistent with other data suggesting a cooling of the US job market in the face of Mr Trump’s tariff hikes and his global trade wars.

Mr Trump, though, insists that the US economy is “booming” and that Ms McEntarfer had manipulated the data to make himself and Republicans “look bad”. He offered no evidence to support his claim, and people who know how the system works say Ms McEntarfer wouldn’t be in a position to fiddle with the statistics.

NOT QUESTIONED

There may be complaints about the breath, and disagreements over the interpretation of Jamaica’s national statics, including those showing significant falls, to historic lows, of Jamaica’s unemployment rate in the post-COVID period. What is not questioned is the general integrity of the data collected by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN), the official data collection agency. No one claims that STATIN cooks the books or changes its methods to satisfy pre-ordained outcomes.

Yet, STATIN is a semi-autonomous agency of the ministry of finance, whose director general, despite the existence of what is commonly referred as a board, appears, at least in law, to be fundamentally accountable to the minister.

The Statistics Act defines the Statistical Institute as the director general, a public official appointed by the minister, and other members, also appointed by the minister. One of the ‘independent’ outsiders is appointed chairman.

But the law says: “The minister may, after consultation with the director general, give to the institute such directions of a general nature as to the policies to be followed by the institute in performance of functions as appears to the minister to be necessary in the public interest.”

The role of the director general was among the issues raised by the white paper. That matter continues to be relevant to ensure that the relationship between the minister and the director general is sufficiently insulated, and of appropriate arm’s length, to prevent political contamination of the data-gathering process by overzealous members of the executive.

At the same time, the idea for a broad-based, independent commission on statistics, which can offer advice to the minister/government on trends and priorities in data collection as well as provide a level of insulation of data collection against political overreach seems worthy.