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Comment by bix6 | Hacker News Reader

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bix6

These guys are just nonstop liars. Print the headline, revise when no one is looking.

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To be fair, revisions are very normal, because the more reliable data (tax filings, for example) comes in later.

https://xcancel.com/ernietedeschi/status/1951721848393105573

Are they ever revised higher? I'll wait...

No wait required; click the link I gave and you'll see the answer is "yes, definitely". Anything over the zero mark on the Y axis is an upwards revision.

I did, You do not know how to read a graph. That line through the middel is just showing the trend of jobs numbers.

Still waiting. Just find me one article that says "Last months BLS jobs were revised higher".

The title of the chart is "Nonfarm Payroll Employment Percent Revisions", with subheading indicating the statistic shown is the final number minus the first released number. The trendline shows the magnitude of the revisions decreasing over time; i.e. that the predictions get more accurate.

For a concrete example, as you request: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/05/jobs-report-may-2026.html

> In addition to the strong jobs numbers for May, revisions for prior months also presented an even better picture. The April tally represented an upward revision of 64,000, while March got a boost up to 214,000, a gain of 29,000.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/business/economy/trump-jo...

> What has been unusual during the early months of Mr. Trump’s term is that the revisions have been consistently in the same direction: down.

You do not know how to read a graph, it seems.

The jobs numbers are notoriously laggy. On the way up, lag means constant upwards revisions. On the way down, lag means constant downwards revisions.

ADP Payrolls are a lower latency indicator but not quite as broad.

This is how bls data has always worked. And the reason is that they don’t always have the full picture every month and need to account for new data in the stats.

Honest ask because I’ve not generally paid attention…

Is it the case that the numbers always appear more optimistic, and then are revised to be more pessimistic values? Or is it just that the original numbers are off and are revised? Does that make sense?

They move in both directions regularly, typically in the direction the economic situation is moving at the time.

Chart: https://xcancel.com/ernietedeschi/status/1951721848393105573

> They move in both directions regularly, typically in the direction the economic situation is moving

And for good reason! These are surveys. The easiest respondents are those saying “no change.” The latest responses, the ones who had the biggest change. In a booming economy, the biggest changes will be hires. In a troubled one, the biggest changes will be those doing lay-offs.

Add to that: the BLS tries to correct for this effect. Which means at the moment the economy turns, its corrections skew the wrong way. (On the whole, per the above chart, the figures are getting better over time.)

If you can do economics without revision, that is, find the real number of jobs lost or gained or workplace participation in real time, you could make a lot of money. Probably win some prizes, too.

Economics is an imperfect science.

It has nothing to do with economics being an imperfect science and all to do with the nature of collecting real time data. Anyone who can collect accurate real time data can make $$$.

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