Unless you want to do away with flash prelim estimates in the first place. Thousands of people gather data across the country and statistical models, with loads of variables, extrapolate the prelim data to the entire universe. The data’s preliminary, and variables are adjusted based on best efforts. Thing is, economic relationships are constantly in flux. In ways that aren’t clear until you can look at them in retrospect.

There is nothing unusual about this. Took under a minute to find an exactly analogous year during the Trump years. You’ll find these differences all through history. It’s the nature of economic estimation. The only difference between then and now is Trumpistan’s commitment to discredit all the institutions which underpin our democracy at every opportunity. They actively search for any opportunity to do that, and for too many, all the proof they need is that some Trumpie (or Trump himself) said it out loud.

You should be less eager to join in that, if you want your kids and grandkids to enjoy the democratic republic we’ve always taken for granted. Getting people to distrust the underpinning institutions, like by seeing evil in innocent activities they’ve engaged in forever, like job number estimates, is the way despots seize power. This is exactly why a too-old guy with some policies you think are a little too left-leaning is the clear lesser evil than the guy who’s trying to win by destroying public trust in all the things that make us the oldest and greatest democracy on the planet.