Every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases the unemployment rate, one of the most closely watched economic indicators. Financial markets, policymakers and the media often focus intently on whether the rate moved up or down by even a tenth of a percentage point, and whether this change was in line with market expectations and expert forecasts. Markets can move and policy narratives can shift based on these small monthly changes. However, an important statistical consideration receives very little attention: the role of sampling variation in monthly unemployment data. In this blog post, we highlight ... (full story)