At Least One Census Worker Made Up Employment Data In Run-Up to 2012 Elections

Wow.

In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington.

The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated.

And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it.
Just two years before the presidential election, the Census Bureau had caught an employee fabricating data that went into the unemployment report, which is one of the most closely watched measures of the economy.

And a knowledgeable source says the deception went beyond that one employee — that it escalated at the time President Obama was seeking reelection in 2012 and continues today.

“He’s not the only one,” said the source, who asked to remain anonymous for now but is willing to talk with the Labor Department and Congress if asked.

The Census employee caught faking the results is Julius Buckmon, according to confidential Census documents obtained by The Post. Buckmon told me in an interview this past weekend that he was told to make up information by higher-ups at Census.

I can't quote the whole thing, but the gist of it is this: Census requires workers get a 90% reportage rate. That is, that they report back on the employment circumstances of 90% of the citizens they're supposed to contact.

This number is unreasonably high.

When Buckmon couldn't reach the 90% level, he says -- he admits -- his higher ups told him to just make up the employment information of whatever number of people he needed to get to 90%.

And, this insider says, this wasn't just one guy: Others were doing this.

And the Census Bureau of course never alerted Labor, even after it was made aware of this.

Holy shit.

I should say that we don't know the scale of this. Was this just a few people? Were the number of falsified reports so small as to not impact the mainline number?

We don't know, of course.

But here's the thing:

Obama will not appoint a Special Prosecutor to look into this. He will, per his habit, assign the matter to his trusted flacks to bury.

Trust us, they say.

via @drewmtips

Update: Obama moved the Census Bureau into the White House chain of command, under Rahm Emmanuel, just three weeks into his first term.

It was apparently very high on his priority list.

Utah's congressional delegation is calling President Obama's decision to move the U.S. census into the White House a purely partisan move and potentially dangerous to congressional redistricting around the country.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told FOX News on Monday that he finds it hard to believe the Obama administration felt the need to place re-evaluation of the inner workings of the census so high on his to-do list, just three weeks into his presidency.

"This is nothing more than a political land grab," Chaffetz said.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, told the Salt Lake Tribune that the move "shouldn't happen." He and Chaffetz are trying to rally Republicans "before its too late."

"It takes something that is supposedly apolitical like the census, and gives it to a guy who is infamously political," Bishop said of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who would be tasked with overseeing the census at the White House.

Thanks to @johnekdahl. P-Shop by @slublog.

At Least One Census Worker Made Up Employment Data In Run-Up to 2012 Elections&bodytext=Wow. In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington. The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 08:53 PM

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