Aaron Brown, Columnist

Trust the Numbers? What to Do When the Data Is Under Attack

May 8, 2026 at 9:00 AM UTC

Aaron Brown is a former head of financial market research at AQR Capital Management. He is also an active crypto investor, and has venture capital investments and advisory ties with crypto firms. He is the author of the soon-to-be-released "Wrong Number."

Fixing the data.
Photographer: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

Kevin Warsh will become chair of the Federal Reserve next week, and he has promised to improve how inflation data is collected and analyzed. He should go further. Official statistics, crucial to crafting policy for the vast and complex American economy, are being challenged from two directions, and the squeeze will land on the new Fed chair.

President Donald Trump fired the previous Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer last year over a jobs report he found inconvenient and has demanded interest rate cuts that the data does not support. This puts direct political pressure on the producers of the official numbers.