Bad government statistics can cost the economy billions

THE LIFE of American government beancounters is tough, and not just at cocktail parties. Now they have a hard time persuading people to talk to them at work, too. A decade ago nearly nine in ten Americans, when asked, agreed to fill out the Current Population Survey, which is administered to about 60,000 households each month and asks about, among other things, employment. Today fewer than seven in ten do so. For the Consumer Expenditure Survey, which tries to capture 3,700 households monthly, the response rate has collapsed from nearly 70% to 40%.