By providing important measures of US economic performance — including employment, consumer prices, wages, job openings, time allocation in households, and productivity — the Bureau of Labor Statistics creates social benefits that exceed its annual cost of roughly $610 million.
Cuts in BLS spending would likely involve net social costs because potential declines in the quality of data, and thus their usefulness to researchers and decision makers, would exceed any budget savings.
An important reason why many workers in Michigan and Ohio have lost jobs in recent years is because US presidential administrations over the past 30 years have not been tough enough in trade negotiations.
