# Economic Data Under Fire: Accuracy, Trust, and Transparency with David Wessel Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-policyviz-podcast-1096919/economic-data-under-fire-accuracy-trust-and-transparency-with-david-wessel Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-policyviz-podcast-1096919/economic-data-under-fire-accuracy-trust-and-transparency-with-david-wessel.md Podcast: [The PolicyViz Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-policyviz-podcast-1096919) Published: 2025-09-19T04:05:00+00:00 Episode link: https://zencastr.com/z/dqyW4r5K Audio file: https://redirect.zencastr.com/r/episode/68ca06f19f7b3e5f130f5ebb/size/41728544/audio-files/5a0b59c06ebaa2000f259f8d/1dfc92f8-550a-4d89-9f2f-d57c53d2b244.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-policyviz-podcast-1096919/episodes/economic-data-under-fire-accuracy-trust-and-transparency-with-david-wessel Duration seconds: 1728 ## Resource In this episode of the show, I talk with David Wessel from the Brookings Institution about the state of the US economy, the reliability of government statistics, and why trust in data matters more than ever. We cover the latest job numbers and what downward revisions mean, the pressures facing agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau, and how politics threatens the credibility of official data. David shares insights on the risks of eroding confidence, what businesses and governments might do in response, and why high-quality, transparent data is essential for policymaking and for the public. It's a timely and important conversation about the role of data in shaping our economic future. Keywords: David Wessel, Jon Schwabish, PolicyViz Podcast, Bureau of Labor Statistics, BLS, Census Bureau, U.S. economy, economic data, data revisions, trust in data, survey fatigue, government statistics, job market, unemployment, economic indicators, federal data, data transparency, data integrity, public trust Subscribe to the PolicyViz Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Become a patron of the PolicyViz Podcast [https://patreon.com/policyviz?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink] for as little as a buck a month Follow Giorgia on Twitter [https://twitter.com/giorgialupi] and find her book "This is Me and Only Me [https://amzn.to/47bhvEG]" on Amazon Follow me on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jschwabish/?hl=en], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanschwabish/], Substack [https://jschwabish.substack.com/], Twitter [https://twitter.com/jschwabish], Website [https://policyviz.com/], YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/c/JonSchwabish] Email: jon@policyviz.com [jschwabish@gmail.com] ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-policyviz-podcast-1096919/episodes/economic-data-under-fire-accuracy-trust-and-transparency-with-david-wessel/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-policyviz-podcast-1096919/economic-data-under-fire-accuracy-trust-and-transparency-with-david-wessel.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.