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ASA, with Statistical Community, Watching Carefully for the Integrity of Federal Statistical Data

  

Concerns for the integrity of federal statistical data have been rising since President Trump’s election and more so since his inauguration gauging from recent articles. Known and trusted as objective, federal statistical data form the backbone of policymaking and decisionmaking in the public and private sector. A January 30 article in the Guardian has been widely circulated. Titled “Statisticians fear Trump White House will manipulate figures to fit narrative” and quoting former Chief Statistician of the United States Katherine Wallman, former BLS Commissioner Erica Groshen and former Census Director Ken Prewitt, it states “Wallman, like other statisticians the Guardian spoke to, believes that a number system which consists of accurate, publicly available government data is currently under threat.”  

A January 9 article from Catherine Rampell, Trump shouldn’t close the doors on government data, reports that, based on conversations with 20 leading scholars in the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in January,

Almost to a person, they mentioned concerns about the continued integrity and availability of government data. The prospect of yet more funding cuts for the statistical agencies, layered with Donald Trump’s repeated efforts to discredit government numbers, bode ill for academics, businesses, households and policymakers alike…
Few statistical agency alumni I’ve spoken with said they worry about outright manipulation of government data. There are protections in place to guard against political meddling, and armies of career civil servants would scream bloody murder if any appointee — Democrat or Republican — violated them. On some level, too, presidents know that having credible economic data is in their own interest.
The bigger risk, they say, is that Republicans on the Hill and in the White House will decide that these data-collection efforts — as well as some related data-sharing agreements with cutting-edge researchers — are at best expendable, at worst politically inconvenient.  

Echoing the threats of budget cuts to all agencies, a widely-circulated recent article in The Hill is titled, Trump team prepares dramatic cuts. One encouraging development is that Wilbur Ross, President Trump’s nominee for the Commerce Department—which includes the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau for Economic Analysis—seems to be value economic statistical data. According to Five Thirty Eight’s Ben Casselman, “Ross positioned himself as an advocate for data, noting during his opening statement that he had been a frequent user of government data during his business career, and had even worked as a census taker while in business school. He said he had learned in business that, “Anything you can’t measure you can’t manage.”

For more articles on concerns about federal data, see the list at the bottom of this entry. In this post, I want to convey the ASA, in coordination with other stakeholders of the federal statistical agencies, is watching closely the developments and addressing concrete threats as they appear. We will also be continuing our active advocacy for their budgets—starting in advance of the resumption of the FY17 budget deliberations this spring and the release of the president’s FY18 budget request—and monitoring closely any threats to the integrity of the surveys and data. We also ask the greater federal statistical data community to make us aware of any concerning developments.

The following are two most concrete data-related issues we are monitoring. (I may add additional items as I learn of them.)

  • Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) have introduced companion bills—R. 482 and S. 103—that have this concerning provision:
"Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no Federal funds may be used to design, build, maintain, utilize, or provide access to a Federal database of geospatial information on community racial disparities or disparities in access to affordable housing."
Titled, “Local Zoning Decisions Protection Act of 2017,” the bills aim to “end the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) regulation known as Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH),” according to a press release from Congressman Gosar’s office. This bill is not necessarily a new threat as Representative Gosar had similar bills in previous congresses (e.g., H.R. 1995 in the 114th Congress) though they did not contain the database provision. Senator Lee’s bill from the 114th Congress, S. 1909, Local Zoning Decisions Protection Act of 2015, did contain the concerning database provision. The database in question appears to be the AFFH Data and Mapping Tool, which is draws almost entirely on publicly available data sources, including the Census Bureau.

Both offices have been receptive to concerns of the community clarifying they are not seeking to undermine data collection/dissemination or, more broadly data-driven decisionmaking/evidence-based policymaking. We will continue to monitor these bills and urge the database provision be removed.

We are also monitoring the effects of the hiring freeze on the federal statistical and other agencies. The following articles touch upon the concerns:

There are many recent articles expressing concern about government data, including on health and climate, in addition to the ones posted above. I will try to keep the following list updated, time allowing:

See other ASA Science Policy blog entries. For ASA science policy updates, follow @ASA_SciPol on Twitter. 
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Louis Giokas
02-10-2017 11:59

I agree with Lewis Shoemaker.  The ASA should stay out of politics.  That said, some of the problems the public has with statistics have to do with the well known failures of statistics in the public sphere (think George W. Bush's second election, Conservative Party win in the last general election in the UK, Brexit, and Donald Trump).  If statisticians are this poor at predicting in these situations (which all have an obvious bias) then what else are they getting wrong, the public might reasonably ask.  I started my working career working for a statistical consulting firm in Washington, D. C. (actually, I was born in DC) and have keenly watched politics all my life.  I worked primarily on statistical analysis for policy purposes.  It is important that people involved in this work do not bring their personal biases to the analysis.  Let the data do the talking regardless of where it leads.  The plain fact is that much of the public does not believe this to be the case, warranted or not.  Take employment data.  The way in which this was determined was changed some time back to only include those out of work looking for a job.   What about those who have stopped looking?  Did they stop forever, or perhaps to get further education or training?  To really give an accurate picture one needs to report a number of statistics, and their variance.  I do not want to go into all the detail here, but what I am trying to point out is that the public has one expectation of what is reported (how many people are out of work) and what they get is an incomplete statistic that does not give the whole picture.  The real problem is that the public knows about this situation, and sees no action to correct it.  In this age of wide open information, you cannot hide it. 

Frank Yoon
02-03-2017 17:51

Thank you for watching.  I found this article recently, haven't completely digested it, but would like to share broadly and widely with this community.  It is really invigorating to understand the current debate in a historical context.
#datademocracy

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/19/crisis-of-statistics-big-data-democracy

And can I just add that David Brooks called it, back in 2010.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/opinion/20brooks.html

Melissa Kovacs
02-03-2017 15:15

Thank you for your work and your vigilance!

Lewis Shoemaker
02-03-2017 12:07

I suggest that the ASA stay out of politics. Every administration including the last one has sought to "interpret" data to their own advantage. We need to be vigilante but no more so than previous administrations. I believe your hysteria is unfounded and only serves to create a hostile atmosphere.
Professor and 30 year member of the ASA