NPR.

This is the indicator from planet money.

I'm Daryan Woods.

And I'm Waylon Wong.

It is Jobs Friday.

That means we have the latest numbers on the U.S. labor market from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Jobs Report shows that 151,000 jobs are added in February.

The unemployment rate nudged up to 4.1% from 4% in January.

The monthly jobs report is one of the major economic indicators that we rely on the government to produce.

And generally, we trust that this data gives us an accurate snapshot of how U.S. workers are doing.

But recently, we've seen government data disappearing from public websites.

We've seen Doge getting access to sensitive information. And in the past week,

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik has disbanded two committees of outside experts that advise

the government on economic data. He also talked about changing how gross domestic product gets

calculated. And people like Erica Groshen are concerned. Erica is a former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

She was also on one of the committees that Lutnik just next.

Erica says that statistical agencies live and die by trust,

trust that the data is both secure and free from political interference.

If people don't trust the data,

then you might as well not produce it. And this data is vital to the economy. The Jobs

Report moves markets. The Federal Reserve and other decision makers use the information to

shape policy that affects all of us. So today on the show, can we still trust official statistics like the monthly jobs report?

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