Bizarre truths, damn lies and statistics

According to the Point-of-Purchase Advertising Institute of Englewood, N.J., the typical supermarket shopper is a woman who does not redeem coupons. She also ignores in-store circulars, misses newspaper ads and does not make a shopping list.
Source: "Business Reports." American Demographics, May 1988.

Upscale clippers

According to Coupon Facts, 1987, 65 percent of homemakers (defined as the woman in the home who does the grocery shopping) use coupons. These women are young, upscale, active. Their clipping behavior increases with income and is higher among those who have attended college.
Source: "Coupon Clippers of America." American Demographics, May 1988.

Old-fashioned numbers

Some economists are complaining that the U.S. Commerce Department's statistics don't reflect what's really going on. For instance, the department's monthly series on contracts and orders for plants and equipment is a key part of the leading indicator index, but it's limited to orders received by plants within the U.S. This overlooks imports of capital goods, which have just about tripled over the last five years. Failing to take that into account may have caused forecasters to underestimate the strength of the economy.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 1988.

Jerry-built housing data?

To save money the Office of Management and Budget is proposing that the 1990 Census include fewer questions about housing and that the detailed census questionnaire go to fewer households. The smaller sampling for the questionnaire would not affect the reliability of data on people, but it would affect housing info. That's because housing units are extremely variable and there are less of them than people. If the proposed cuts are made, the 1990 housing data would only be reliable for large metro areas, states and the nation. Analysts would not be able to use it to match housing characteristics with people in small counties and neighborhoods.
Source: "Keeping Up." American Demographics. May 1988.

What is 'employment'?

Does it mean jobs? Workers?
Full-time equivalents?
Wage and salary earners only?
Farmers and proprietary businesses?
"Many different people are doing employment data, and they all have their own definition."
Source: Max Dieber, director of research services, Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission, Chicago.

Make a new plan, Stan

Apparently there are 50 ways to count jobs — maybe more, if you start delving into local spin-off. Taking numbers at face value leads to "data-driven" thinking and to strange conclusions, such as "the dubious claim that 'small businesses create 82 percent of all net new jobs.' "
Source: George Kalidonis. Chicago Enterprise. June 1988.

U.S. trade statistics

"Notoriously weak and inaccurate."
Source: Anthony Liberatore, associate professor of economics and author of Quarterly Economic Forecast, Millikin University, Decatur.

Travel and tourism statistics

The data is poor.
There is no valid, consistent national data base.
You get it from proprietary data services, which are expensive and limited.
We don't know how much travel goes on within states, how much from one state to another or how it balances out. (Currently Illinois is trying to get some other states to share the cost of a nationwide travel study.)
Source: Wally Biermann, chief economist, Department of Commerce and Community Affairs.

Standard Industrial Classification

No details on the fast-growing service sector. Outdated definitions of products in the computer and communication fields.
Source: Liberatore.

Tracking high tech

"There is no single identifying term for robotics. Within the whole field of Standard Industrial Categories, the definitions are relevant to manufacturing decades ago."
Source: Biermann.

'A double-edged sword'

If you change the definitions in the database, you lose historical continuity.

If you don't, you shut the database off from new phenomena.
Source: Biermann.

Privatizing and federalizing

The federal government wants to save money and to privatize data collecting as much as possible. Right now the feds are still collecting census data, but they're passing on the cost of distributing it to the states.
Source: Biermann.

Politicalizing

"How tightly you want to control the economy also has something to do with the kind of numbers you want. Activists want more and firmer numbers. Your perspective can depend a lot on your interventionist tendencies."
Source: Liberatore.

General funds

The general funds balance at the end of May was $82.572 million; the average daily available balance was $141.462 million.
Source: Office of the Comptroller.

Record high employment

The nation's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose in May to 5.6 percent, and Illinois' dropped to 6.6 percent, the lowest since December 1979.

There were 5.733 million people in the state's civilian labor force in May; 5.353 million people were working, a record for the month; 381,000 were unemployed. The seasonal surge in construction, agriculture and recreation accounted for most of the gains. Nonfarm jobs topped 5 million for the fist time ever. Manufacturing showed an nover-the-yaer gain for the 14th consecutive month.

The final unemployment rates for the state's metro areas in March were:

Aurora-Elgin, 6.2 percent.
Bloomington-Normal, 6.7 percent.
Champaign-Urbana-Rantoul, 4.8 percent.
Chicago, 7.1 percent.
Davenport, Rock Island, Moline (Illinois sector), 9.2 percent.
Decatur, 9.7 percent.
Joliet, 8.9 percent.
Kankakee, 11.5 percent.
Lake County, 4.8 percent.
Peoria, 7.7 percent.
Rockford, 8.6 percent.
Springfield, 6.0 percent.
St. Louis (Illinois sector), 9.7 percent.
Source: Department of Employment Security.

Margaret S. Knoepfle

July 1988 | Illinois Issues | 6