The US job market added fewer jobs than expected in February as unemployment unexpectedly rose

[Wiz Imp]

8. These are the kind of meh numbers that are not immediately obviously either honest or dishonest.

For now I'm inclined to think they are probably legit. Federal Government employment did drop by 10,000, but most of the Federal job cuts happened too late to show up in the February data. March data will definitely show a much bigger drop in Federal Government jobs.

Just to be clear, BLS has been producing these data for about 90 years, and there has never been any manipulation of the numbers. The BLS employees involved with these programs have been of the utmost integrity and only the economists and statisticians within the BLS have access to the data prior to the 8:30 AM release on the First Friday of every month. No outside parties have been allowed to see the data prior to its official publication and that includes the President. It is extremely unfortunate that we are now in a position where we can no longer trust that nearly a century of honest data reporting norms will continue to be followed. Having worked on these programs for close to 35 years myself, it will be a very sad and dark day if/when this administration chooses to throw away that century of principles, ethics and morals. Once it is broached, there is no going back.