In this episode of the show, I talk with David Wessel from the Brookings Institution about the state of the US economy, the reliability of government statistics, and why trust in data matters more than ever. We cover the latest job numbers and what downward revisions mean, the pressures facing agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau, and how politics threatens the credibility of official data. David shares insights on the risks of eroding confidence, what businesses and governments might do in response, and why high-quality, transparent data is essential for policymaking and for the public. It’s a timely and important conversation about the role of data in shaping our economic future.
Guest Bio
David Wessel is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings and director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, the mission of which is to improve the quality of fiscal and monetary policies and public understanding of them. He joined Brookings in December 2013 after 30 years on the staff of The Wall Street Journal where, most recently, he was economics editor and wrote the weekly Capital column. He appears frequently on NPR’s Morning Edition and posts frequently on BlueSky at @davidmwessel.bsky.social
David is the author of two New York Times best-sellers: “In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke’s War on the Great Panic” (2009) and “Red Ink: Inside the High Stakes Politics of the Federal Budget” (2012). His most recent book is “Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age” (2021), the story of Opportunity Zones.
He has shared two Pulitzer Prizes, one in 1984 for a Boston Globe series on the persistence of racism in Boston and the other in 2003 for Wall Street Journal stories on corporate scandals. David is a member of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Data Users Advisory Committee. He also has taught in the Dartmouth Tuck School of Business Global 2030 executive education program and in the journalism program at Princeton University.
A native of New Haven, Conn., and a product of its public schools, David is a 1975 graduate of Haverford College. He was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Business and Economics Journalism at Columbia University in 1980-81. Episodes of David’s podcast, “Wessel’s Economic Update,” are available here.
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Transcript
00:01.60
Jon
Hey, David, good to see you again.
00:03.03
David Wessel
Good to see you, John.
00:04.15
Jon
It’s been a while. ah think maybe last time I saw you was one of the BLS Advisory Council meetings.
00:10.58
David Wessel
May it rest in peace.
00:11.74
Jon
Yeah, unfortunate. Just one of the other things that we now lose, I think. um So there’s a lot to talk about. um I want to start with economics and then talk about economic data, if we could.
00:23.42
Jon
um so Job numbers have been coming out fast and furious the last couple of months showing, I think, kind of a weakening or slowing job market. And I’m curious what your take is. It’s sort of mid-September now. So kind of in between the two the the two numbers. But what what do you see happening? What’s what what’s your take?
00:42.78
David Wessel
Well, it seems to me that the job market has is weakening. i i think the recently revised numbers underscore that the pace of hiring has slowed.
00:54.71
David Wessel
And I’m also a bit influenced by the historical pattern that when there are a lot of downward revisions, that often happens at turning points in the economy. um so My story seems to be that ah a lot of there was a lot of uncertainty.
01:13.78
David Wessel
We’ve worn out two words, uncertainty and unprecedented.
01:17.31
Jon
Yeah.
01:17.65
David Wessel
um There was a lot of uncertainty and there was some hesitation and people weren’t sure what was going to happen to tariffs and stuff. But I, it feels to me like we’re past the waiting period and employers are beginning to plan on a slowing economy and that means less hiring.
01:36.47
Jon
yeah And do you, are you looking at this by sector? Are you seeing, for example, auto sector being slower than others or is this, yeah or is it too early to tell, su soon too soon to tell?
01:49.36
David Wessel
Well, for a long time, it looked like we were in a period of post-COVID catch-up.
01:57.01
Jon
Mm-hmm.
01:57.32
David Wessel
So like ah one of my colleagues here has a nice chart showing ah employment by sector compared to where it was just before the pandemic. And you could see that hospitality was taking a long time to get back to pre-COVID levels. Maybe it never will.
02:15.14
David Wessel
But basically, i and i’m not i’m not seeing much. I haven’t looked much sector specific. ah I’m thinking more of the general zeitgeist of the economy.
02:24.26
Jon
the Yeah. So you you mentioned the downward revisions, and maybe I could ask you two questions here. One, to explain from your perspective outside BLS, ah why these downward revisions happen and what you take from them and what people who are not familiar with these numbers, with these revisions, what they should…
02:46.29
Jon
think about because I think we’ve seen attacks on the BLS and other statistical agencies about changes to data that that in many cases are probably unfounded. and And so what should people know about these revisions that that mean that they can still trust numbers are coming out of BLS and census?
03:03.91
David Wessel
So I know this may sound counterintuitive, but I think people should have more confidence in the Bureau of Labor Statistics because they issue revisions as they get more information.
03:15.86
David Wessel
It would be nice if they got it all right the first time, but on the payroll jobs numbers each month, for instance, they have a survey. ah They ask 120,000 businesses, how many people are you employing?
03:30.87
David Wessel
And a lot of people don’t respond. on the first go round. So they get more responses on the second go round and they revise the numbers. And then on the third go round, they get still more. So as if I would rather they were getting the numbers right the first time, but I’m also, um I have confidence that if they get the numbers wrong or as they get more information, they’re not afraid to revise them.
03:54.80
Jon
Mm-hmm.
03:54.80
David Wessel
um As you know, there was this big annual benchmark revision where they revealed that we had 911,000 fewer jobs in March 2025 than they had previously estimated. That’s about six-tenths of a percent is the total number of jobs in the economy.
04:12.05
David Wessel
And that’s because every year ah they take all the unemployment insurance records and they see from much bigger set of companies, nearly all employers, how many people they had on their payrolls.
04:23.35
David Wessel
So clearly the first set of numbers are a survey. The survey is flawed. they um They’re having bad response rates, particularly in the first round, and they’re updating them.
04:35.42
David Wessel
So um i I know that it’s upsetting to people to see like, wait a minute, couldn’t you get it right? um I’m kind of reminded there’s this great Federal Reserve transcript where the staff reports that the Bureau of Economic Statistics has reduced their estimates of GDP growth.
04:53.88
David Wessel
And then Fed Governor Ben Bernanke says, well, if they can restate GDP growth retroactively, can we do the same thing on interest rates?
05:05.55
Jon
so so let So let me put it this way then. So now the BLS, another commissioner has been nominated. There’ll be hearings. But even…
05:17.37
Jon
with this confidence that you think people should have in the agency? What do you think they should do? Or is there anything they should do to A, increase that confidence and B, just generally speaking, going forward, like what are the steps, what are the procedures you think that they need to implement to you know make sure that people are confident in the data and that the data are still high quality?
05:36.01
David Wessel
Right. So I think there’s a bit of uneasiness among the people in the outside the statistical agencies who have for a long time said, you know, you could do better.
05:48.66
Jon
Yeah.
05:48.91
David Wessel
There are things you could do better. And then the agencies say, yeah, well, we need the resources and um etct etc., etc. So I think it’s important that there be a process of continual improvement in the way they collect data, particularly given how technology makes it possible. And they’ve taken steps in this direction to get stuff at lower cost by scraping the web and so forth.
06:13.40
David Wessel
um But as you know, John, they’ve sort of been starved for resources and that makes it, it’s great to say, oh, you should do this. I know there, I’ve talked to a number of business people who say, why don’t they just use private sector data? And I’ve pointed out to them two things. One is, you know, some of these private sector data providers to charge the government for them.
06:35.59
David Wessel
It’s not free. And secondly, the data isn’t collected. ah with measuring the economy as its objective, it’s collected for business purposes and it’s not always a representative sample and the historical continuity is not always there.
06:51.53
David Wessel
um Third, I think that um the the problem we have is that the president has created the impression that he’s going to fire people who don’t give him the numbers they want.
07:02.70
Jon
Right.
07:03.19
David Wessel
um I like I’ve likened this to your team is losing the baseball game. So you fire the scorekeeper, but your team is still losing the game.
07:13.24
Jon
right
07:13.59
David Wessel
And so I think that he’s eroded people’s confidence that these are hardworking technicians who are doing their best making mistakes, but making them not because of some political agenda. and I think it’s important that that people in the agency stand up if they’re being pressured so the rest of us know it’s happening.
07:33.39
David Wessel
And it’s important that people outside the agencies emphasize the importance of having good unbiased data, even if it’s imperfect.
07:44.08
Jon
And what, from your perspective, is the long-term risks of those continued attacks, be it on management or on the on the analyst level?
07:52.78
David Wessel
Well, they’ve already lost a lot of people at the BLS.
07:55.04
Jon
Yeah.
07:55.54
David Wessel
um And I worry that they they’re going to have trouble attracting competent people. Also, if people don’t believe the numbers, then they’re going to at least open the possibility that ah other numbers, which may not be ah as well founded as the BLS numbers, will take over.
08:15.77
David Wessel
mean, one thing that’s just a good example of how dangerous this is, the The Treasury sells a lot of bonds that are inflation protected and your return on the bonds is pegged to the consumer price index.
08:30.27
David Wessel
And if people think that the consumer price index is being monkeyed with for political reasons, are they going to be willing to buy those bonds? Or if they do, are they going to demand a premium, which means the government has to pay more for them?
08:43.48
Jon
Mm-hmm.
08:43.54
David Wessel
So I think and I think also that it’s not just what’s going on at the BLS.
08:43.62
Jon
Mm-hmm.
08:49.81
David Wessel
It’s what’s going on at the Federal Reserve. It’s what’s going on in the firing people at independent agencies. It’s the attacks on higher education.
09:00.88
David Wessel
So the whole thing tends to erode people’s confidence in. or trust in the government, which hasn’t been that high anyways.
09:07.43
Jon
e
09:07.69
David Wessel
And so that does two things. One is it makes it really hard for the government to actually fix things that need to be fixed that require the trust of the people. And secondly, the United States is the world’s largest borrower.
09:21.14
David Wessel
And if people start to suspect that our numbers are being cooked, our central bank isn’t independent, they’re going to demand slightly higher rates when we lend when they but when they lend us money, and that’s going to cost us all.
09:32.76
Jon
Right now in your conversations with businesses, or have you heard businesses making any sort of pivot in their reading of data? Are they relying more on their own internal data or data that they can buy from other private sector organizations?
09:49.66
David Wessel
Well, I think, first of all, businesses in general on this question have been profiles of no courage. It’s very hard to get ah the chief economist at a Fortune 500 company to come on the stage at Brookings and say, good economic data is good for business, good for the economy, good for America.
10:09.99
David Wessel
Secondly, i think everybody is thinking about, well, if we, mean, what happens if we wake up one morning and the Bureau of Labor Statistics says, well, we don’t like all these provisions, so we’re only going to issue numbers every other month or something.
10:25.96
Jon
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
10:26.13
David Wessel
I think people will turn to alternative. There are some alternative data sources out there. um It’s uncomfortable because a lot of them are a benchmark to the BLS or the census data. But yes, I mean, I haven’t heard anybody who’s any more relying on private data.
10:42.36
David Wessel
I mean, as you know, a lot of businesses seem to rely more on anecdotes than data when it comes to judging the economy anyways. But I think people are beginning to say, what what are the alternatives? And I think they will have we have some options. I mean, you know, there’s this um people who did the Billion Price Project who scraped retail prices at five major retailers, they got going because Argentina was cooking the books on its inflation numbers, so they tried to come up with an alternative. And I think that people will be, if the government numbers start to differ substantially from what privately gathered data suggests, and there starts to be reports from insiders at the agencies that they’re not allowed to do their jobs, then people will begin to rely more on private
11:27.89
Jon
Yeah. And have you talked to anyone or have you thought about what folks at state and local level, particularly in the government should do? I mean, ah just take, for example, you know, ah you know, maybe faith in the CDC vaccine recommendations is going to decline. And so instead of going to the CDC website, I go to the You know, my state’s department of health ah website, like what are some of the solutions or actions that state and local agencies might need to take?
11:59.04
David Wessel
That’s a good question. um I think to the extent that state and local governments are relying on federally gathered data, they may want to do more data gathering on their own.
12:10.85
David Wessel
um And it’s not as hard as it used to be.
12:14.37
Jon
Yeah.
12:14.56
David Wessel
It’s difficult, um especially given people’s currently have survey fatigue. But yeah, if I were running a state or a local economic development thing, I’d want to think about, is there a way that I can get a handle on what’s happening in my state that doesn’t depend on the BLS?
12:31.49
David Wessel
um And I think also that um they can help help they have they have a responsibility to help build trust in the local government, even if people are losing trust in the federal government.
12:43.78
David Wessel
Because as we know, the surveys generally show people seem to trust their local government more.
12:44.32
Jon
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
12:48.89
Jon
e
12:49.36
David Wessel
um ah you know ah But it’s it’s a bit scary. And it’s scary because things that we used to take for granted, we can no longer take for granted.
13:02.33
David Wessel
I don’t believe that the any of the numbers in the BLS or the Bureau of Economic Analysis or the Census Bureau have been cooked. um I think we would know if they had been.
13:13.25
David Wessel
But am I 100% confidence that I will be able to say that in three months, six months, nine months and 12 months? No.
13:20.14
Jon
ehi
13:20.22
David Wessel
And that’s not something that I would have thought in my 35 years in Washington, I would ever say.
13:26.71
Jon
Right. You mentioned the Census Bureau. I’m i’m curious on your thoughts about this. I’ll call it a proposal, although I’m not sure how formal it is, but the the administration has proposed either sort of change in the census or some sort of other census that wouldn’t count people who live in the country without legal status. And I’m curious what you think the impacts of that would, I mean, we can put aside whether they would actually do it, but like what the impacts would be of of that alternative would be.
13:57.24
David Wessel
Well, the first thing to say is that this kind of is an ugly reminder of some of our history, you know the three-fifths compromise where we count some people as less than other people. In that case, it was slaves and it was largely for political reasons.
14:15.90
David Wessel
So obviously there are a lot of communities that have higher than concentrations of people without or undocumented. And so they would lose census money and you know local federal aid to education money, and maybe even congressional representation as a result.
14:38.42
David Wessel
I don’t quite, I understand the president’s argument, like, you know you should only count citizens and all that stuff. um I haven’t actually, it’s a good question. I should look, maybe you know, John, how it works out regionally. I mean, for instance, so the Republicans seem to think that Texas is there is a right place to elect Republicans.
14:59.60
David Wessel
But my guess is that Texas has a disproportionate number of undocumented. Would that reduce the ah growth of the Texas population enough to affect one congressional seat?
15:11.23
David Wessel
um So and I can’t think of anything good to come out of it. And it’s part of a rather unfortunate or not rather very unfortunate xenophobia and war on immigrants.
15:21.45
Jon
Yeah, I did. um just looking this up because I did some work on this and basically looked at the share of people without legal status that were calculated by Pew as a share of the total population.
15:37.09
Jon
And… I think the largest, the state with the greatest share is Nevada, followed by Texas, followed by new Jersey and Florida, and then California a little bit lower down.
15:44.26
David Wessel
Interesting.
15:50.43
Jon
So… um Yeah, I mean, it would definitely impact certainly potentially the apportionment if that were if it were used in that way, but also the provision of of federal state grants.
16:03.92
David Wessel
Exactly.
16:05.02
Jon
um and And do you think that that’s just, yeah generally speaking, that people just don’t understand how census data are used or or or people just don’t care?
16:05.16
David Wessel
Exactly.
16:16.20
Jon
and And it’s more of a, at this point, it’s up it’s a political argument. And so, you know, people are okay with that.
16:24.05
David Wessel
Well, first of all, i’t know who these people are you’re talking about. um I’m sure that most people have no idea that this is going on, right?
16:31.16
Jon
Yeah, right. Okay. Okay. okay There’s a little bit of a Washington bubble.
16:32.51
David Wessel
thank you they could too They could tell you that the price of coffee is up a
16:34.17
Jon
Yeah. okay yeah Right. Right. Yeah.
16:39.73
David Wessel
But no, i think I think it’s, I don’t think people, you know, I know there’s been all these campaigns every time we do the decennial census to help people understand that you should really cooperate because it may have to do with how much money your a school local school gets and stuff.
16:54.59
Jon
Yeah.
16:55.21
David Wessel
But in general, I don’t think people understand. And I think it’s mostly part of um President Trump picking up on the antipathy that some Americans have towards immigrants.
17:05.81
David Wessel
And it’s just ah just one more facet of that.
17:09.21
Jon
Yeah.
17:09.30
David Wessel
um But ah yeah, and as you say, i don’t know whether it’s legal under the 14th Amendment and all that stuff. That’s going to be on my pitty gritty.
17:18.52
Jon
Right. um Can you help people? We’ve talked about falling response rates just a little bit, but can you help people understand I mean, the obvious answer is survey fatigue.
17:29.99
Jon
People just don’t like to answer surveys. But is there a ah more nuanced answer to that question of why and and help understand?
17:33.74
David Wessel
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, first of all, the survey fatigue is a real thing. I mean, if I go to CVS and buy a pack of gum, I get a text asking me to rate the service at CVS.
17:47.07
Jon
Yeah.
17:47.39
David Wessel
I went to the dermatologist and I got something asking me to fill out a… risk I mean, it’s like ah enough already, right?
17:55.01
Jon
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:55.11
David Wessel
You know? um um And of course, the only reason i ever filled them out is I’m pissed off at them about something.
18:00.58
Jon
Yeah, right, yeah, yeah, 100%.
18:02.44
David Wessel
um So I think there is survey fatigue. I think there’s a lack of trust in government and it’s, um why should I give you this information? i might not, it might not, you might do something with it that I don’t like.
18:15.93
David Wessel
And the Trump administration has not helped on that regard. um And then i think the other thing is that, ah that, that, um,
18:28.44
David Wessel
So these things are the same. One is trust in government and the other is privacy.
18:31.51
Jon
Yeah.
18:33.20
David Wessel
And people are, some people, I mean, it’s kind of interesting. I find the younger people are less worried about that. They assume that everybody knows what they’re doing. They put it on Facebook and Instagram. So off one more thing.
18:44.07
Jon
yeah
18:44.23
David Wessel
um But I do think that people worry that because of all the um you know, reports of government data being hacked and stuff that they’re doing. And fourth, um you know, whenever you get a call or an email asking for information, you do have to ask yourself, is this some kind of phishing scam?
19:02.79
Jon
Right.
19:03.31
David Wessel
And so I think there’s lots of things going on. um But, you know, the BLS problem is not limited to households or individuals like me and you. It’s also businesses.
19:13.92
Jon
Mm-hmm.
19:14.04
David Wessel
And so I just don’t think that people see it as their… They have a lot going on. they don’t The businesses don’t see it as their patriotic duty and they don’t see the value in responding to these surveys.
19:24.53
Jon
Mm-hmm.
19:26.21
David Wessel
um That’s the best I can do.
19:28.21
Jon
So do do you think that’s a a problem that can be solved?
19:37.58
David Wessel
I hope so. um You know, the Federal Reserve does this extensive survey of consumer finances and
19:47.09
Jon
Mm-hmm.
19:48.76
David Wessel
they had trouble getting people to respond, particularly rich people, and so they pay them.
19:55.71
Jon
e
19:55.97
David Wessel
So um I think that we can make the surveys easier. We could probably think harder and I know the census and BLS think about this.
20:07.76
David Wessel
you know When you tell somebody ah this is going to take 40 minutes your first reaction is, yeah, right. And then also, there as we do know that there are now more and more administrative data.
20:24.12
David Wessel
that can allow us to get a lot of information without doing the surveys.
20:27.94
Jon
Mm-hmm.
20:28.03
David Wessel
We still have to do surveys and the administrative data is not always up to date, but um more and more, we should be able to get some of the information from administrative data, government records.
20:28.08
Jon
Mm-hmm.
20:41.79
David Wessel
um I mean, JPMorgan Chase does a hell of a lot anonymized with the people who have accounts at JPMorgan Chase telling us a lot about the economy. So, yeah, I think we could figure out how to do better. We need to make it easier for people.
20:55.66
David Wessel
We need to help them understand how the data is used. I don’t know about you, John, but every once in a while I get a survey from some graduate student or some economist or some public, some PR firm that wants to know you know my impression and mostly I turn them down because I’m too busy.
21:10.12
Jon
in
21:13.94
David Wessel
But I do appreciate it when if you do participate, then they send you the results. So maybe there’s a way to get people to see little bit more about what your information was used for.
21:19.58
Jon
Yeah.
21:25.98
Jon
Yeah. I’ve never been in the American Community Survey, but that’s always been a but always been a hope.
21:30.02
David Wessel
Me neither. Yeah, yeah, I know.
21:30.87
Jon
That would get them out. Yeah.
21:32.62
David Wessel
I know. I guess exactly. Yeah.
21:34.14
Jon
yeah
21:34.53
David Wessel
I mean, like, you know, I’m one of the people who really likes it when I get the long form for the census.
21:39.80
Jon
You’re right.
21:40.03
David Wessel
Yeah.
21:40.16
Jon
Exactly.
21:40.39
David Wessel
Yeah.
21:40.48
Jon
Yeah.
21:43.01
Jon
This is good. I’m going to take some time and really sit down with this. Yeah, absolutely.
21:45.69
David Wessel
yeah
21:46.70
Jon
um So we’ve, we’ve talked a bit about ah solutions and looking forward, but I’m curious, what do you think, ah people listening to this podcast, right, who are working in data, they’re visualizing data, they’re, you know, they’re analysts and communicators, like what should or can they do to think about helping protect statistical data agencies?
22:11.42
David Wessel
So I think there’s been a concerted effort by people like the ones you’ve had on the program, the former commissioners, the BLS and stuff to defend the agencies and to say, they’re not perfect, but we’ve made their life miserable by starving them for resources.
22:19.70
Jon
Mm-hmm.
22:28.91
David Wessel
I think we have to be um very quick to condemn any efforts that we see to manipulate the data. um you know i think we’re all counting on the whistleblowers.
22:41.08
Jon
Mm-hmm.
22:41.44
David Wessel
um But then I think we do have to prepare for if the government data is, even if it’s not corrupted, but it’s just being questioned, look for ways to come up with privately gathered data so we can see whether how far off the government data is and to think about how to do that.
23:01.95
Jon
Yeah. um David, anything I missed that you think is important for people to know when it comes to these, i would say regularly produced data from the federal side. And we’ve talked a lot about the BLS, the Census Bureau.
23:17.23
Jon
um I mean, there’s just so many data sets out there for people to think about, but, but.
23:22.79
David Wessel
Right. So I think there’s there’s they’re there’re there’s a number of different uses of these things.
23:30.36
Jon
Mm-hmm.
23:30.36
David Wessel
One thing is I think people need to understand that some of this stuff really, really goes directly into things like escalation clauses in in leases or…
23:42.93
Jon
Right.
23:44.44
David Wessel
You know, there’s productivity adjustments to what we pay doctors for Medicare, or as I pointed out earlier, the that inflation index bonds. So some of this stuff, it’s not just getting a nice picture of the economy.
23:57.52
David Wessel
It’s actually making it adjust or should have said adjusting the tax brackets ah stuff.
24:02.44
Jon
right
24:03.62
David Wessel
So like getting these numbers right affects us all because of all these escalators. Secondly, um look, we are we are dealing with a very…
24:14.51
David Wessel
complicated and rapidly changing economy. And ah I’m enough of a nerd to think that we need to be always looking at what’s happened, ah how much did the letting China into the World Trade Organization affect employment and where and how should that inform our relationship to China?
24:38.37
David Wessel
If we worry about what um ah why some children of poor people seem to have a hard time getting out of poverty themselves, which government programs, whether it’s food stamps or Head Start or Medicaid or giving money to schools or whatever, have the most bang for the buck.
24:59.13
David Wessel
And people have a lot of opinions about that.
25:02.94
Jon
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
25:03.08
David Wessel
And it’s easy on the bumper sticker level. But if you really want to make good decisions about how do we make life better for most Americans, um you do need some foundation of academic rigorous research which requires data.
25:19.56
David Wessel
And I don’t think people generally understand how much of the social programs we have are influenced by the research that people have done before. I mean, just take for an example, the Earned Income Tax Credit.
25:32.66
David Wessel
It’s one of our biggest anti-poverty programs. It’s a bonus that we pay low-wage workers. And it has survived in part because there’s good data on what effect it this has on people’s willingness to work or the well-being of their children and stuff like that.
25:49.87
David Wessel
So without good data to fund to that honest researchers can do, and sometimes we’ll discover some programs don’t work and we can get rid of them, we’ll be driving blind.
26:01.53
David Wessel
And so I think it has both short-term, the tax in indexation and long-term implications if the data gets worse.
26:10.85
Jon
yeah ah David, thanks so much for coming on the show.
26:14.46
David Wessel
Sure.
26:14.64
Jon
ah Really interesting talk to you again. And um ah hopefully they’ll have a user advisory group put back together at some point and we’ll ah we’ll see each other then.
26:24.12
David Wessel
I hope people appreciate that we had to pay for our own lunch at those things. yeah
26:30.09
Jon
That’s right.
26:30.62
David Wessel
So we weren’t wasting any government resources.
26:30.77
Jon
That’s right. All day. All day.
26:33.57
David Wessel
All right, take care.
26:33.72
Jon
That’s right. All day for those meetings. All right. Thank you, David. Appreciate it.
26:36.49
David Wessel
Thanks, John.
26:37.05
Jon
ah You too. Bye.
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