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Kai Ryssdal (1:02)

On the program today, economic data, both public and private, mobile homes, and a new advanced placement course. Don't worry, no test. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace.

In the Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdal. It is Thursday. Today, this one is the 17th of September. Good as it always is to have you along, everybody. You know, maybe the biggest change from the Jay Powell Fed to the Kevin Warsh Fed, other than the straight up word count of their speeches and remarks, is this.

Kevin Warsh (1:42)

As you might know, I'm not a data point dependent guy. So I won't react one way or another to data that shows up on our doorstep.

Kai Ryssdal (1:51)

That was him yesterday at his press conference. Data you might remember was Powell's best friend. But as Chairman Warsh tries to help steer the US economy, he is choosing a different data path. Economist Catherine N. Edwards wrote about that for Bloomberg not too long ago.

Welcome back to the program. Good to have you on.

Catherine Ann Edwards (2:08)

Thank you so much.

Kai Ryssdal (2:09)

All right, we'll get to the data point thing from the chairman in just a second. Thoughts, though, briefly on what he had to say yesterday?

Catherine Ann Edwards (2:18)

I think I was too focused on the fact that they had actually raised rates, and that was a very good signal. But he both have managed to do the right thing and inspire some lack of confidence at the same time.

Kai Ryssdal (2:30)

Great. We all feel better now. So let's get to the data point thing. You wrote in Bloomberg the other day, a couple of weeks ago, whatever it was, that the Fed basically and Chairman Warsh is making a big mistake if they, as the Chairman has intimated, switch or rely less on government data. Explain your case for me, please.

Catherine Ann Edwards (2:52)

You know, so I think a lot of people can, you know, this will resonate, that when you get a new boss, they like to redo everything. The way that he has done this at the Fed is he has started with these task force, and there's a handful of them, they each have a different activity, one of them is on data. And for people who are following federal data, which it's okay if you're not, the federal statistical agencies are not only vitally important, but they are under attack.

And they're under attack in terms of their funding, they're under attack in terms of their credibility, they're actually under attack if it's your job and you're the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And so many of us in this advocacy community have been waiting for the Fed to stand up for the data that they rely on. And instead, he basically came in and said we should probably use private sector data. But I think it was just a missed opportunity to be a champion of a cause that uniquely affects something like the Federal Reserve.

Kai Ryssdal (3:48)

We should say here, there are definitely problems, as you pointed out, with some of these federal statistical agencies and the way they collect data.

Survey responses are falling and all of those things. But your point here is that, and obviously correct me if I'm wrong, we lose something if we don't use these federal statistical agencies to their maximum. What do we lose?

Catherine Ann Edwards (4:09)

Well, essentially, we lose minorities first.

We have an unemployment rate now that's delivered monthly, but it comes with about 120 others. What is the unemployment rate of young people? What is the unemployment rate of women? What is the unemployment rate of black people? We know these things because we measure them, and being measured is being seen. You can ask anybody who is struggling in the labor market right now and who thinks the unemployment rate is a lie. They don't feel seen. And what I thought was particularly ill-advised about it is that the statistical agencies themselves have developed a plan to incorporate private data in a way that keeps the representation that all of us use for our own advocacy and vindication. We risk losing that, and he seemed to swat away its necessity.