Headline: New York Times, 3/13/2026
Ben Casselman reports:
The reason for the divergence: The agency, which is part of the Commerce Department, had changed the source of its data on legal prices, relying on wholesale prices from the Bureau of Labor Statistics rather than the consumer price data it usually uses.\
A technical tweak to such a small category — legal services account for less than 1 percent of overall consumer spending — would ordinarily draw little notice.
But in this case, the adjustment was enough to shave roughly a tenth of a percentage point off the monthly change in the core Personal Consumption Expenditures price index. That is a meaningful difference to investors, who track even tiny moves in the index for hints of when and how the Federal Reserve will next adjust interest rates. The central bank officially targets the P.C.E. index, not the better-known Consumer Price Index, when making policy decisions.
Paul Krugman gives the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt.
"I don't believe it's corruption, but it's not a good look."
According to Merriam-Webster, the first known use of 'cook the books' as in to alter official accounting records in order to deceive or mislead, occurred in 1850.
- add up (as in doesn't______)
- behind-the-scenes
- calibrate
- malodorous
- window dressing
Related post:
Raise your hand if you thought Trump was going to cook the books (Bureau of Labor Statistics edition). (8/25/2025)
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