A few years ago Mark Palko and I wrote an article, The War on Data, where we discussed three problems with public data:

1. Fraudulent or manipulated numbers (we used the example of General Electric executive Jack Welch’s notorious distortions of quarterly earnings);

2. Acceptance of such behavior (Welch being treated as a hero despite–or, in a sense, because of–his unethical data manipulations);

3. Moves to degrade data quality (we used the example of an attempt by Congress to suppress research and cut the budget of Census data collection).

All of these keeps happening, but with political polarization it seems to be getting worse.

Palko shared this recent news story:

Analysts voiced concerns this week about the integrity of U.S. Department of Agriculture reports after the agency delayed a report and excluded findings that point to tariffs as a reason for a forecasted increase in the agricultural trade deficit, according to Reuters interviews with four analysts. . . .

The agency’s delay of a quarterly agricultural trade report and exclusion of its typical explanatory text were concerning because the moves raised questions about the objectivity of the data, two analysts said. . . .

The quarterly trade outlook report jointly published by the USDA’s Economic Research Service and Foreign Agricultural Service was scheduled to be released on May 29. Shortly before it was set to publish, its authors were told to stop its release, according to a source familiar with the situation. The authors were then questioned by leaders at the ERS, FAS and USDA Office of the Chief Economist about the report’s attribution of the growing agriculture trade deficit to tariffs . . .

And now this:

Elon Musk . . . rolled out an eye-popping allegation of rampant fraud at the Social Security Administration. Scammers, he said, were making 40 percent of all calls to the agency’s customer service line.

Social Security employees knew the billionaire’s claim had no basis in fact. After journalists followed up, staff members began drafting a response correcting the record. . . .

Social Security is now run by Frank Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive who was confirmed as commissioner on May 6. . . . Mr. Bisignano acknowledged that the 40 percent figure cited by Mr. Musk was incorrect. “We’re going to be a fact-based, rule-based organization that can count,” Mr. Bisignano said.

But then:

In a statement later provided by the agency, Mr. Bisignano said: “The work that DOGE did was 100 percent accurate.”

What happened? The news article explains:

In early February, a DOGE team stationed at the Treasury Department gained access to crucial federal data: the payments the Treasury processed on behalf of government agencies.

Inside that system, DOGE members saw taxpayer funds flowing to people who appeared not to have Social Security numbers, according to an internal memo viewed by The Times and people briefed on DOGE’s analysis of the Treasury data. Other recipients seemed to be dead.

None of it was evidence of wrongdoing, Social Security employees would later explain to DOGE. Mr. Musk’s team simply did not understand the data. But on X, Mr. Musk suddenly began accusing the agency of enabling “massive fraud,” saying in a flurry of posts starting Feb. 9 that Social Security payments had been going to scammers and “illegals.” . . .

In the extensive analysis that followed, agency experts carefully documented fallacies in DOGE’s work . . . “These payments are valid,” Sean Brune, an acting deputy commissioner, wrote in a memo examining one of the issues. . . .

But Mr. Russo [“a former payments processing executive who had been installed as the new chief information officer”], who did not respond to a request for comment, said that DOGE would not trust career civil servants, according to people familiar with his statements. Instead, he insisted that Akash Bobba — a 21-year-old who had interned at Palantir and become one of DOGE’s lead coders — conduct his own analysis.

To do that, Mr. Bobba would need to gain access to the personal data Social Security kept on Americans. That could include the identifying nine-digit numbers, names, addresses, dates and places of birth, citizenship and benefit amounts, as well as other sensitive information.

Meanwhile:

Mr. Musk posted another seemingly shocking allegation: Millions of people older than 120 were not listed as dead in Social Security’s database. And he suggested they were being paid. . . . Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Fox News that DOGE suspected there were “tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent Social Security payments.”

Actually:

Millions of people who had died before modern-day record keeping made it easy to verify deaths were listed as still being alive, experts said. But the agency automatically stops payments going to people listed as older than 115, except in rare circumstances.

One audit from 2015 found only 13 people older than 112 still receiving benefits. Other audits found payments being sent to an estimated 24,000 people who generally died more recently — a sign of Social Security needing tighter controls and monitoring — but not the millions Mr. Musk claimed.

This Social Security fake data scandal involves all three of the problems mentioned at the top of this post:

1. Fraudulent or manipulated numbers (the 40% figure, etc);

2. Acceptance of such behavior (public officials repeating the lie and then firing people who question it);

3. Moves to degrade the data quality (happening all over the place).

Summary

I’m annoyed at the people who want to blow up economic data collection on the grounds that the data are imperfect and that it tells them things they don’t want to hear, in the same way as I’m annoyed at the people who want to blow up opinion polling on the grounds that the data are imperfect and that it tells them things they don’t want to hear.