Last week, Terry Lundgren, chairman of the retail institution Macy’s, interviewed Wilbur Ross, US commerce secretary, at an event at The Economic Club of New York. There was plenty of talk about the economy, tax cuts and Donald Trump. But, to my mind, the most interesting moment occurred when Lundgren asked Ross about the US census, which the commerce department conducts every 10 years.
The next census will take place in 2020, and will be a symbolic moment for Ross: his first job was as a humble census worker. He knows that in the current climate, the survey will attract great scrutiny. It will also present significant challenges — from convincing some communities to trust the government and complete the form accurately, to the cyber security threats posed by the process (the 2020 census will be the first in the US to accept responses online). “We will have to train 500,000 people,” Ross said.
Lundgren was more concerned by another issue: can the numbers be trusted? Or, indeed, are we able to have confidence in any economic data these days? In the private sector, it’s simple to count how many dresses are sold in Macy’s outlets or how many staff turn up for a shift — but the proportion of retail sales occurring in bricks-and-mortar stores is shrinking fast. As businesses move online, CEOs such as Lundgren are worried that government statisticians may not be able to track activity in cyberspace as accurately as in the real world. “Do you really [measure] it?” he asked Ross, sounding surprisingly doubtful.