Is there something really wrong with the nation’s employment counts?

Questions about the quality of the jobs data came into the spotlight this month when President Donald Trump fired the boss of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after its latest report showed, among numerous disappointing results, a sharp revision to June’s initial jobs tally. Trump insists, without proof, that the bureau produces numbers biased against him.

One flash point in the statistical dust-up was a 133,000 revision downward to what was previously reported about June’s count of seasonally adjusted, nonfarm employment. So, gains were cut to 14,000 from 147,000.

In an instant-analysis era, thin job creation transformed the economic storyline.

The original data suggested the new administration’s unorthodox business ag

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