Fed Chair Powell: Data from BLS is 'good enough to do our work'

Group 1 - The preliminary benchmark revisions indicated a decrease of 911,000 jobs, marking the first negative revisions since December 2020, raising concerns about the reliability of data used by the Federal Reserve for interest rate decisions [1] - The Bureau of Labor Statistics is aware of the issues related to low response rates and the challenges posed by the birth-death model, which complicates job creation data due to the dynamic nature of new businesses [3][4] - There is a need for higher response rates to reduce data volatility, which can be achieved by ensuring that data collection agencies have adequate resources [5] Group 2 - Job creation data tends to be less reliable in the first month due to low response rates, but improves significantly by the second and third months as more responses are collected [6] - If the benchmark data indicating that 51% of previously thought jobs were not actually there is accurate, it suggests a weaker job market entering the year, which could have influenced interest rate decisions if known earlier [7] - The current approach requires focusing on present data rather than past information, leading to timely actions based on the latest available data [8]