This is one of those "lying with statistics" moments. The implication is that "Unwanted telemarketing calls" have gone down significantly, maybe even "more than 50 percent since 2021" and the second order implication is that it was the efforts of the FTC that made the drop happen.

The reality is simply that reports to the FTC have gone down which is going to be from myriad other reasons besides the implied ones.

  1. Since many spam/scam calls utilize some form of spoofing, many savvy people aren't going to waste their time reporting the number.  
  2. Since many phones / carriers have the ability to report spam/scam, people aren't very likely to spend their time reporting the number to the FTC.  
  3. Many carriers and phones have services that come standard (or at least paid) that automatically filter or flag low reputation numbers, leading to fewer reports to the FTC.
  4. People that have tried reporting in the past and have gone through the trouble of associating their email and phone number in yet another government database have given up reporting after no appreciable effect.

Frankly, I don't think calls have dropped much if at all, and many of us have stopped accepting calls from unknown numbers unless we are expecting it, so those "ignored" ones certainly don't get reported either.