&gt; <i>BLS numbers are routinely revised in retrospect to be worse a quarter or two later and with a friday release so that no one notices.</i><p>See.. this is where you&#x27;re completely wrong.<p>&gt; <i>As in, more than one in two BLS unemployment reports is retroactively revised, and I don&#x27;t remember a single &quot;it&#x27;s actually better than we previously reported&quot; revision.</i><p>All BLS reports are revised -- they&#x27;re surveys that are aggregated as firms respond. Their methodology is completely transparent.[1]<p>In fact, the BLS is so transparent that they actually keep a data series that tracks revisions to their own data with monthly history back to 1979! [2]<p>Their initial monthly jobs numbers in 2015 were overstated by an average of 4,000 jobs. However, in 2014, their initial jobs numbers were <i>understated</i> by 37,000 jobs. Does understating the initial numbers by nearly 40,000 jobs&#x2F;month sound like the behavior of an agency trying to fool the public?<p>Conspiracy theories about public entities that report every single facet of their methodology, data, and metadata are silly.<p>[1] - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bls.gov&#x2F;opub&#x2F;btn&#x2F;volume-2&#x2F;revisions-to-jobs-numbers.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bls.gov&#x2F;opub&#x2F;btn&#x2F;volume-2&#x2F;revisions-to-jobs-numbe...</a><p>[2] - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bls.gov&#x2F;web&#x2F;empsit&#x2F;cesnaicsrev.htm#Summary" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bls.gov&#x2F;web&#x2F;empsit&#x2F;cesnaicsrev.htm#Summary</a>