Erica Groshen and Robert Groves: Better Data for a Better Economy: "Mov[ing] the Bureau of Labor Statistics—the source of statistics on jobs, wages, working conditions, productivity and prices—from the Labor Department to the Commerce Department...
...There, it would become a sister agency to the Bureau of Economic Analysis... [and] to the Census Bureau.... With the three principal economic statistics-producing agencies in the same home and current legal and regulatory barriers eliminated, real efficiencies could be gained and data quality could be improved.... The agencies could share an advanced computational infrastructure... coordinate their data requests from businesses... coordinate work to improve estimates of productivity, trade and service-industry activities and could address emerging issues such as the digital economy.... We think this proposal’s benefits are clear, and we urge Congress to give it serious consideration. Yet we must be mindful that a democracy needs legal protections that require the production of objective statistics without political interference. All three agencies have this protection now; they need to retain it when reorganized.
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