Trump Tried to Mess With the Jobs Report. It Didn't Work. | Diving In
episodePreviously titled “Why I Still Trust The Jobs Report | Diving In” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 5, 2026
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Have you been hacked? Who got to you? Blink three times if you need rescuing. Look. That was the response I got when I said the last job market report was strong. And look, I get the unease. We're talking about administration that lies all the time. This was a president who fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the numbers didn't go his way. He tried to install a crank in her place. Those are real reasons to worry. So I'm not going to ask you to switch your brain off and plainly trust the government. I sure don't. In fact, quite the opposite. I'm here to help you look more carefully. I want us to explore how our economic numbers are actually put together to give you a sense of what tampering might actually look like if it were occurring.
And I want to help you assess the evidence for yourself. Because here's the thing. I still believe the jobs report.
It's not because I trust politicians, but because I do know how these numbers are put together. I know how all the things they'd have to do if they wanted to corrupt the numbers. And I know what the warning signs would look like if someone were trying. But I get it. Today, it's not enough for me to tell you that I trust these numbers. I want to equip you so that you can make your own informed judgment. To do that, we're going to have to answer six questions. Why do these facts feel so uncomfortable? why the BLS scare was real, how the institution quietly held, why I believe the numbers, what distorted data actually looks like. And finally, once we believe the data, if we believe the data, why you might be drawn to believe the labor market right now looks reasonably strong.
So let's start with the first question, which is why do these facts that the job market looks strong feel uncomfortable. The latest government report said that non-farm payrolls rose by 172,000 in May and that the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%. That's a factual claim about what the Bureau of Labor Statistics says it found. It's not yet a claim about whether those numbers are good or bad. That interpretation is going to come later. But for a lot of people, just hearing those numbers, which sound pretty strong, was jarring. The reaction was instant. It was impossible, they said. It was fake. That it was propaganda. Justin must have been got at. Hey, this instinct, it's very human. We all like stories that make the world feel coherent.
That leads us to prefer facts that slot neatly into the picture that's already sitting in our heads. But economics begins precisely where that instinct ends. Economics says start with the reality, then build your story to make sense of it. Don't start with a story and then decide which facts you're willing to admit. That's the problem. Or to put it in more platypus economics terms,
Why did listeners react angrily to the latest jobs report?
Sometimes the world hands you a platypus. What do I mean by that? Well, the first time the Europeans saw a platypus, a lot of them called it a fraud instead of calling it the world's cutest animal. They saw a duck bill and a beaver tail. They saw it laid eggs, but it's also a mammal. Come on! A British scientist named George Shaw, a serious man, a museum curator no less, he literally checked the pelt for stitches.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:57
2
Why did listeners react angrily to the latest jobs report?
3:57–10:49
3
How can cognitive bias make strong job numbers feel unbelievable?
10:49–22:49
4
Did the Trump administration really try to politicize the Bureau of Labor Statistics?
22:49–28:45
Speakers
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