Why fake Census figures met their death

WHEN the Labor Department releases the nation’s unemployment rate Thursday, there will a lot less numberfudging than there was just 18 months ago — and I’m going to prove it in this column.

In late 2013, I wrote about some Census Bureau dastardly deeds involving the Current Population Survey (CPS), which Labor uses to come up with its monthly unemployment rate.

Thanks to a whistleblower, I found out that Julius Buckmon, a former data collector in the Philadelphia Census region whose territory was Washington, was faking surveys. Buckmon said it was on the orders of others. Those “others” denied it.

Because of the scientific nature of the CPS, Buckmon’s actions alone were significant. His falsifications were affecting responses for the equivalent of 50,000 households every month.

Other whistleblowers told me that the Philly region wasn’t the only one cheating. In all, sources in five of the six Census regions said surveys were being changed, manipulated or in some way falsified.

When Congress looked into the Buckmon incident, the Commerce Department — which oversees Census — “obstructed” that investigation. That’s the word used by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The Oversight Committee said it couldn’t determine how bad the falsification problem was because of the obstruction, but largescale reforms were still ordered.

So how do I know there is less cheating going on today?

In 2013, Census regularly hit or exceeded the 90 percent quota for successful interviews required by the Labor Department. That means nine out of 10 households chosen to be surveyed had to complete questions about their employment status, their ability to work and whether they’ve been looking for a job.

But census takers were cheating to reach 90 percent. Like Buckmon, some were just filling in blank surveys. Others made their quota by saying houses were vacant when they weren’t, or that they couldn’t get to a house because the road was out. Since census takers are punished if they don’t meet their quota, there was a great incentive to cheat.

Now that Census workers are being scrutinized by a lot of people, including the Labor Department and me, the cheating has abated.

Whaddya know? The surveyors suddenly can’t hit 90 percent.

Nationally, only 86.79 percent of surveys were completed in June. The New York region got 83.98 percent, Philadelphia 84.31 percent, Chicago 89.05 percent (that one needs looking into by investigators), Atlanta 88.82 percent, Denver 87.42 percent and Los Angeles 87.31 percent.

Nobody reached 90 percent, according to figures provided by a Census spy. As you might expect, Census didn’t give me those numbers.

And the regions only reached those totals, I’m told, after they were given an extra day to conduct surveys.

That’s odd because the unemployment numbers are being released a day earlier this month owing to the July 4 holiday. So there wasn’t any real reason to give surveyors extra time.

The difference between the 90 percent regularly attained before my investigation and today’s figures — or 3.21 percentage nationally — is probably about the amount of cheating that was going on.

If Buckmon alone changed the responses for 50,000 households, imagine how those 3.21 percentage points in fake responses were altering the true unemployment rate.

By the way, the whistleblower I mentioned earlier is now being harassed by Census and the Commerce Department, as are two other people who gave me information to clean up the employment numbers.

It’s a damned shame. While Congress is supposed to be looking into the treatment of all whistleblowers, it really isn’t doing much.

If this country wants courageous people to step forward and say something when they see wrongdoing, Washington has to do a much better job protecting them.

Chris Christie wants to be president. Yikes, we are in trouble as a country.

Under Christie, New Jersey has been one of the weakest state economies. And that’s despite the fact that Jersey got a huge stimulus package — namely, federal funds to recover from Hurricane Sandy.

I’ve got a perfect motto for the Christie campaign. “Big Guy. Big Talk. I’ll Do for You What I Did to Them.”

Here’s a little bit of information that will make you toss and turn:

Some 62 percent of Americans lose sleep over financial problems, according to CreditCards.com.

Let’s do this “Family Feud”style: The top concern is — bing! — saving enough for retirement. The second concern is paying education expenses, and the third is health care and insurance bills. Seniors are the group most likely to worry, which isn’t surprising considering the Federal Reserve has taken away all their interest income. And Hispanics are more likely to lose sleep over financial troubles than blacks and whites.

I always thought most people lost sleep over a lumpy mattress. The irony is, a new mattress would cost a lot of money, and buying one will cause even more financial anxiety.