The Census Bureau is slick.
It has figured out a way to increase the percentage of households that respond to its surveys. How? It wilšl make less of an effort to question families in aą“reas where cooperation is historically lacking.
And that usually means skippšøing poor households and bad neighborhoods. And that also means bypassing people who are more likely to be unemployed.
A few yešars ago, I caught census workers jacking up thšeir response rates the old-fashioned way: Theyād fill out surveys themselves. The fraud was widespread, with people in all six census regions doing it.
When my investigation put the kibosh on that kind of nonsense, the response rates for ceš¦¹nsus surveys plummeted. And that wasnāt good for census higher-ups, because the sponsors of the surveys ā their customers include the Labor Department and the Centers for āDisease Control (CDC) ā require a response rate of at least 90 percent.
The bonuses of ceānsus managers were suddenly at stake.
Census has now started a three-month trial in what is called Adaptive Design. According to a memo it sent to its workers, households will be placed in threeā categories ā high, medium and low ā depending on the likelihoošÆd of them cooperating.
This memo details a test being conducted during the National Health Interview Survey, which is sponsored by the CDC and the Census Bureau itself. Some of the information picked up in this survey is shared with the American Community Survey, a broader poll that helps ź¦determine how federal funds are distributed to localities.
And Iām told that some of the data from the health survey that is being used as a guinea pig will also find their way into the Survey of Income and Program Participaštion (SIPP), which is used for a wide variety of things, including the tracking of government transfer payments and the populationās status in the labor force.
I found no iš°ndication that this trial was being used on any economic data that could impact the presidential election. But whenever a three-month experimental survey is begun four months before a presidential election, it does raise questions in my mind.
The āmost recent Adaptive Design āexperiment,ā as the spokesman called it, ābegan in July 2016 and will encompass the third ź¦quarter of data collection.ā
TšŖhe bureau also said that āat this timeā it is not testing Adaptšive Design in the survey used for the unemployment rate.
All right then, now it really isnāt a secrź§et. Now I can go to bed with more confidence that the Census Bureau isnāš«t playing fast and loose with economic data before the election.
At least thatās my opinion right now.
Phew! That was a close call for the Democrats.
On July 29, the day after the Demsā convention ended, the Commerce Department reported some ašwful economic news. The nationās gross domestic product (GDP) for the second quarter rose at an annualized rate of just 1.2 peą²rcent.
Wall Street expected 2.6 percent. Even the Atlanta Federal Reserve guessed wrong at 1.8 percent. And worse, the 1.2 percent may be overstating growth, since the number included aź¦ very high personal consumption component that shouldnāt be occurring in an economy this slow.
Plus, first-quarter GDP growth was revišsed down from an annual rate of 1.1 percent to just 0.8 percent.
The Washington Post headline the day after Hillary Clintonās nomination was, As I said last week, the Democrats were awfully lucky that the GDP report came out a day after their š°get-together, or the vision offered ašt the convention couldnāt have been so upbeat.
The bad GDP, of coursāe, is good for outsider Donald Trump, whoš® is banging the drum about economic hardship.
Next up on the econāomic front: Fridayās employment report for July. If the latest GDP is any indication, the number of new jobs in the economy should be a lot less than were reported in July.
A bad jobs report will further hurt the Democrats. The US economy will be ļ·½a big factor in determining who wins in November.
Iāll say it again: The US economy will never be healthy again uą¼ŗntil the folks in Wšashington come up with new and improved ways to stimulate growth.
Get used to growth of around 2 percent and a FederaÜ«l Reserve that canāt do anything aź§bout it.
Once again, my proposal is worth a try: Change the rules on how retirement accounts can be used so that the trillions of dollš¹ars in them can stimulate the economy. At the very least, let retirement money be used to invest directly in real estate.
Gasoline prices keep dropping, with West Texas Intermedšiate crude falling below $40 per barrel on āMonday.
I told you so.
No matter how much Wall Street triš§es to pump up the price of oil, the effort will be futile until the world economy starts growing at a reasonableą¹ pace.
And that isnāt going to happen anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the US should continue to discover new energy sources. Look for oil, natural gas and coal deposits and find aź¦ cleaner way to get peopą¹le from here to there.