Will GDP and Unemployment Numbers Be Politicized Under Trump?
On the evening of September 1, 2011, I had the unpleasant task of delivering the confidential August jobs report to President Obama before it would be made public the next day. “I don’t like the look on your face,” I remember the president saying to me in the Oval Office.
“The job number is zero,” I said.
“Zero?” he asked. “What do you mean, ‘zero’?”
“The payroll jobs data is zero,” I replied.
Incredulous, the president asked, “You mean it is exactly zero? Like, if I took that paper out of your hand and looked at it, I would just see a zero?”
“Yes,” I replied with a wince.
“Has that ever happened before?” he asked.
“I don’t think so, sir,” I replied.
This was obviously not happy news. After he’d helped pass a payroll-tax cut and an extension of unemployment benefits near the end of 2010, the economy was in 2011. But after chaotic global events such.” Commemorative buttons soon followed.
