And here is the difference. Article 1, Section 2 of the US Constitution: The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.
That means the federal government is authorized and required to actually count noses every 10 years. Until the government experts started estimating how many people they missed, this was an exact count and could be verified.
On the other hand, nobody has ever proven that the BLS number crunchers are right or wrong or even in the ball park. Ever. In the history of mankind.
A thousand years ago, the spiritual grandparents of the BLS analysts were arguing about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Now we pay heads of pins and provide pensions so that they can measure exactly what they don't know, to 3 decimal places.
And all of the empty storefronts provide more objective evidence of the condition of employment than the number crunchers can produce. So can the unemployment numbers, and the proliferation of "Cash For Gold" places that have shown up in so many strip malls and inner-city neighborhoods.
From a guy who is bullying defense contractors to break the law about upcoming layoffs, saying he'll pay their fines if they'll just stop reminding the workers/voters they're about to lose their jobs in January ?????
Puulllleeeeaaassseee. You really do think we're stoopid.