Just two months before the last presidential election, the Census Bureau’s Philadelphia office lost track of 61 laptops used by its workers to record unemployment and inflation data, The Post has learned.
More than 120 laptops had been missing, but after Census HQ told officials in the Philly office that September to investigate the situation, all but the 61 were found.
Eleven of the missing 61 computers were assigned to Census supervisors, internal e-mails reveal. That is key because supervisors have the ability to change unemployment survey responses obtained by Census field reps and cover data falsifications.
We already know statistics about the unemployment rate and the consumer price index had been manipulated years earlier in the Philly Census office. And I’ve already told you about sources who have claimed that falsification was going on in other Census regions and in Philadelphia around the time of President Obama’s re-election effort.
The e-mails I received from Census — thanks to the Freedom of Information Act — are more evidence that there was something amiss at the agency, which releases information that is so important to the Federal Reserve, financial markets, corporations and retirees, whose annual inflation adjustments are based on the work down by Census field reps.
Of course, the Census information that September was also very important to voters.
As the head of the Philly region — one of just six Census areas in the country — was discussing the missing machines in e-mails, field reps were preparing to start house-to-house interviews for the Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted on behalf of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Information from the CPS — better known as the Household Survey — produces the nation’s unemployment rate.
When the results of that particular survey were announced on Oct. 5, they showed an improbable decline in the unemployment rate from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent. The jobless rate had been stuck at high levels since the Great Recession and hadn’t been prone to big movements.
Experts were caught by surprise by that 0.3 percentage point drop, and there were accusations at the time (by others, not me) that the data had been rigged.
That was the next-to-last unemployment report before the Nov. 6 presidential election, which Barack Obama won by a large margin. The BLS released another unemployment rate, on Nov. 6, showing joblessness rising to 7.9 percent from 7.8.
The e-mail exchange between Fernando Armstrong, the director of the Census Philly region, and his superiors about the missing equipment were part of a heavily redacted group of documents I received after filing the FOIA request.
You’ll recall that a field rep named Julius Buckmon was caught fabricating data that went into the unemployment and inflation reports in 2010. Buckmon alleged that supervisors encouraged him to do it.
Other Census sources of mine say data falsification was rampant and not confined to the Philly region.
A report earlier this year by Commerce’s Inspector General confirmed Buckmon’s transgressions.
But the IG, Todd Zinser, who is now under attack by Congress for other matters, ruled that there was no conspiracy to falsify data and that Buckmon had acted alone.
Zinser’s report never mentioned the 61 missing laptops.
About 600 pages of e-mails between workers in the Philly office weren’t released to me because, Commerce said, these unreleased correspondences didn’t fit within the purview of my request.
Earlier this year, Commerce rejected my request for e-mails between Armstrong and Stanley Moore, the octogenarian head of Chicago Census region. Moore, I’m told by sources, was Armstrong’s mentor. So, I thought it would be interesting to know what sort of things the two chatted about, since Chicago is Pres. Obama’s hometown.
Before that request was rejected, Commerce informed me that there were just under 2,000 pages of Moore and Armstrong e-mails. I was eventually sent just 10 pages of insignificant chats between the two. The Post appealed that decision almost three months ago and Commerce has yet to issue a decision.
The Post will file an appeal this week on the 600 pages of unreleased Philly e-mails.
“The issue is not missing equipment,” wrote Armstrong to his boss, Brian Monaghan, on Sept. 14, 2012, but the failure to file the proper paperwork on the machines. Those machines contained tons of personal information on people who had been surveyed. Lucky for those families that the Census surveys stopped collecting Social Security numbers a few years earlier.
Armstrong blamed the lost laptops on confusion after Census shrunk from 12 regions to just six. Armstrong told Monaghan in that e-mail that “there were 123 items “not located” the previous day. “As of an hour or so ago, the number has come down to 61.”
Armstrong also told Monaghan that he and the assistant regional director had been away when the issue of the missing computers came to light and they both rushed back. “There were plenty of tears shed yesterday with the ACSD people present and again this morning when I met with our Admin staff,” he wrote, adding. “The box of tissues I keep for these moments became very handy.”
ACSD is the abbreviation for American Community Survey Data, which collects population and housing data annually. It’s one of the many surveys conducted by Census. Data collectors use the same computers for all their surveys.
Armstrong’s lengthy explanation about the missing computers was prompted by an e-mail earlier that day from Peggy J. Howell-Jones, who was apparently in charge of keeping track of such things.
Four hours after the Howell-Jones e-mail was sent, Monaghan forwarded it to Armstrong with the same subject line: “Philly’s Inventory.” Monaghan’s message to Armstrong was simply: “What’s up?”
Monaghan retired earlier this year, shortly after I requested his e-mails.
Armstrong wouldn’t answer my questions about the laptops and referred me to the Census press office, which didn’t call me back. Howell-Jones was on vacation. Her supervisor didn’t return my call.
So, I’d like to ask the same question: “What’s up?”