Leaked Reports and Political Heat Are Testing Trust in Economic Data

It has been a rough year for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The agency — which produces key numbers on inflation, unemployment and other aspects of the economy — has made a series of missteps in recent months, including a premature release of the Consumer Price Index.

That has prompted questions about how the bureau, which is part of the Labor Department, shares information and whether it has been giving an unfair advantage to Wall Street insiders who can profit from it. The agency’s inspector general is looking into the incidents. So is at least one congressional committee.

At the same time, the bureau — like other statistical agencies in the United States and around the world — is facing long-running challenges: shrinking budgets, declining response rates to its surveys, shifting economic patterns in the wake of the pandemic and increased public skepticism of its numbers, at times stoked by political leaders including former President Donald J. Trump.

Economists and other experts say the bureau’s data remains reliable, and they praise the agency’s efforts to ensure its numbers are accurate and free of political bias. But they say the recent problems threaten to undermine confidence in the agency, and in government statistics more broadly.

“A statistical agency lives or dies by trust,” said Erica Groshen, who served as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics during the Obama administration. Once that trust is lost, she added, “it’s very hard to restore it.”

The agency recognizes that threat, its current leader says, and is taking it seriously.

“We are under more scrutiny because the environment around the agency has changed,” Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the bureau, said in an interview.