No, private data can't replace the BLS

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The clock is ticking on federally subsidized EVs and dealers are seizing the moment.

From American public media, this is Marketplace.

In Denver, I'm Amy Scott in for Chi Rizdahl.

It's Monday, September 1st.

Good to have you with us on this Labor Day.

As I'm sure you've been reminded by an ad or 10, the holiday weekend is a big time for promotions.

And for some car dealerships, Congress has effectively created an urgent buy now while supplies last sales event for the next month.

They did it, of course, by killing federal electric vehicle tax credits in the GOP tax and spending law passed in early July.

Those credits take thousands of dollars off the purchase price of new and used EVs, and they now expire September 30th.

That has led to a surge in EV sales, at least for now, as Marketplace's Henry Epp reports.

As soon as President Trump signed the law that set an end date for EV tax credits, Jesse Lohr, who runs a used car dealership in New Hampshire, started stocking up.

We immediately went to the wholesale market and bought as many vehicles that could qualify as possible.

Lohr's dealership only sells used EVs.

The sales rush started at his lot in mid-July and hasn't let up.

Our sales have been been over 40% over last year.

We have had people literally fighting over some of these vehicles to get them in time for the tax credit.

For certain used EVs, that tax credit is up to $4,000.

For new ones, it's almost double that.

But those deals go away in less than 30 days.

It's a perfect storm of creating the sense of urgency that is really resonating with consumers that are thinking about buying an EV.

Stephanie Valdez-Streaty is at Cox Automotive.

July was the second best month for EV sales in the U.S.

ever, according to Cox's data.

And Valdez-Streaty says August and September could continue that record pace, which is convenient for a lot of car dealers who were having trouble moving some EV models before the tax credits were given an expiration date, says Jessica Caldwell at Edmonds.

We have heard from dealers for quite some time now that, you know, inventory is stacking up for electric vehicles.

They want to clear it out.

So they definitely are available.

Though in markets where EVs are more popular, buyers may not be able to get exactly what they want.

But Caldwell says there's still time.

To get it from a place where maybe electric vehicles are not as popular, you could still make that happen in the next few weeks.

But if you wait till September 29th, you might find yourself disappointed.

And once October comes around, you'll likely face a higher price tag.

I'm Henry App for Marketplace.

Markets were closed for the holiday today, but the economy keeps on going.

We'll have the details when we do the numbers.

This fall, it'll be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether or not many of Trump's new tariffs are legal.

In the meantime, manufacturers across the country continue to navigate evolving evolving trade policy.

Tomorrow we'll hear how those companies are faring more broadly when the latest Purchasing Managers Index comes out.

For today, we're going to zoom in a bit on how certain regions of the country are doing.

Marketplace's Elizabeth Troval reports.

Starting in New York State, where a lot of durable goods like metals and machines are manufactured.

We saw a bump up in activity, which was pretty unusual.

Rich Dietz says, while the New York Fed survey showed continued negativity around tariffs, tariffs, there's a little bit more activity for some domestic manufacturers because of the higher tariffs making it more expensive to buy goods from other countries.

Further south to the Carolinas and Virginias, where they produce a little bit of everything from autos to chemicals.

Jason Casakow with the Richmond Fed says things are still pretty soft.

A lot of firms are not necessarily positive right now, but they do have a little bit of hope about the next six months.

He says input costs have spiked for manufacturers who are hesitant to pass on costs to customers.

Food manufacturing, furniture, they're getting a lot of pushback from retailers saying we can't increase prices anymore.

Moving further west to the Kansas City Fed District, where there's a lot of meat packing and HVAC manufacturing, Courtney Cowley says firms are absorbing price increases through the supply chain.

So a supplier taking on some of those, the manufacturer taking on some, and then passing through

another portion of that to the customers.

We haven't really seen as maybe as much price pass through to this point.

And further south in Texas, where there's a lot of food and metals manufacturing and refining, the Dallas Feds Emily Kirk says pricing is also a struggle.

They're not in the best position to say, hey, our costs are going up, so we're going to push those costs through to our customers.

I think they've got to be more careful and seeing whether demand can hold up to those higher prices.

But August's survey did have good news.

New orders turned positive, showing strength in demand.

I'm Elizabeth Troval for Marketplace.

This Friday, we'll get the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That's the one that caused all kinds of controversy last month when it showed a big slowdown in hiring, and President Trump promptly fired BLS Chief Erica McIntarfer.

U.S.

government economic data has long been the gold standard around the world, but it's not the only option out there.

Private companies, as you surely know, are collecting data all the time, from the swipes of our credit cards to the location of our smartphones and many other ways we interact with the economy.

But if necessary, could that data stand in for the numbers we get from the BLS?

Marketplace's Maria Hollenhorst looked into it.

Ray Sanza knows if you are taking a lunch break right now.

Seriously.

All of our data is anonymized.

We would never share the details about PIPA, but yes.

He's the chief strategy officer of a company called Homebase, which makes employee scheduling and time tracking software mostly for small businesses like restaurants and coffee shops.

So any employee that's working for a a company that uses home-based software.

We will then know that she is working as she takes breaks, whether paid or unpaid, she will clock in and out.

Now you start to aggregate that across 150,000 businesses.

You get a very accurate view down to literally the minute of the level of economic activity on Main Street.

Now, why is that useful?

Let's take a look at Lollapalooza.

Lollapalooza, for those who don't know, is a music festival.

It happened the first weekend in August and drew Sabrina Carpenter, Tyler the Creator, and about 115,000 attendees to Chicago.

I want to just jump in here and show you just at the level of Chicago.

Sansa can peer into the database of employee time cards for Chicago small businesses and see how much people were working during Lollapalooza week compared to the week before.

You can see that there was a marked increase in activity.

That type of up-to-the-minute high-frequency economic data was especially useful at the beginning of the pandemic, when monthly reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics just weren't timely enough to capture how fast the ways that people worked, shopped, and ate were changing during COVID.

Our CEO, he's from Seattle.

He took a look at his hometown and he said,

holy,

like, we need to tell people about this because they don't know what's coming.

Actually, that was a subscription that one of the centers in the Booth School of Business added during the pandemic.

Greg Fleming is a business and economics librarian at the University of Chicago, which is one of the users of Home Basis data.

He's sort of like a procurement officer for all the professors, staff, and students looking for data to do their research.

That's a good way to put it.

And then people doing research find somebody's collected this data and they're selling it.

Can't the library buy it for them?

And in most cases, we can't because it's incredibly expensive.

Like six figures expensive for some databases, which in a university with thousands of data-hungry researchers adds up.

So, accessibility is one reason why the BLS is the main game in town.

Zane Mochiber is the director of data management and analysis at the Economic Policy Institute.

And he says government data is not only free, it's also unique.

Anything coming out of the private sector, it's unlikely to have the transparency that BLS and census surveys have in terms of methodologies documented and made publicly available.

There really isn't a measure or a group of measures that I know about that can replicate the information that we get from the BLS.

A lot of private companies that publish data, like Homebase, only have insight into the businesses that use their software.

Data is just kind of a byproduct of their main business.

Whereas federal statistical agencies like the BLS are in the business of data.

It's what they do.

The private sector just wouldn't jump to fill in the void if government data collection was stopped or potentially corrupted by political interference because there's just not a clear profit motive there.

Think about surveys on rural populations or native communities, detailed breakdowns of workers by age, race, and sex.

Some of these government surveys, which are critical, would simply not be done if the government didn't do them.

There are areas where private companies can add to or fill gaps in data that the federal government doesn't provide.

For example, Homebase has clients and therefore worker databases in three cities that the BLS pulled out of this year.

That's Lincoln, Nebraska, Provo, Utah, and Buffalo, New York.

But as useful as that information may be, it will not replace the information that we taxpayers have always relied on the federal government to provide.

I'm Maria Hollenhorst for Marketplace.

Labor Day weekend is a big time for road trips, including in RVs.

The RV Industry Association says more than 7 million Americans planned to hit the road this weekend.

The booming market for recreational vehicles in recent years has increased demand for a tropical hardwood used in their construction.

It's called Lawan, and that demand is taking a toll on forests and communities in Southeast Asia.

Sweali Wee wrote about it for the New York Times.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you.

What is Lawan, if I'm saying it right, and why is it so valuable to the RV industry?

Yes, Lawan is the type of tropical plywood that the RV industry really relies on.

In other parts of the world, it's known as Maranti.

The RV industry is one of the largest consumers of this type of tropical plywood, and it uses a lot of it to make the walls, floors, and ceilings, basically the interiors of the RVs.

And a significant portion of this plywood is sourced from Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, where it is linked to the destruction of rainforests.

And can you talk about the impact that deforestation has had, not just on the environment and local people, but on the climate?

Yeah, so when I traveled to a remote part of West Kalimantan last year to report on this story,

I went to a place where there were lots of peatlands.

Now, peatlands are like really dense bogs of

peat, basically, that store large amounts of carbon.

And environmental experts say when you clear land, when you clear peat, it's tantamount to releasing a carbon bomb.

And this was what happened in this area that I had traveled to.

So,

yeah, so that was just

really destructive.

And the NGOs that I had spoken with for this

project, Earthside, managed to track, trace the wood from these companies clearing the vast areas of peatlands and tropical rainforests all the way to the suppliers of RV makers in the U.S.

How did the RV industry respond to your reporting?

Are they aware of this problem?

They actually

gave me quite general responses about protecting the environment.

We know that the CEO of Thor Industries, which is one of the largest RV makers in America, has talked about how they know that this is an unsustainable practice.

But

they've long said that there are no alternatives to this type of wood.

So that's as far as they will go.

Is that true?

Are there no good alternatives?

Well,

the RV industry says this, but the NGOs that brought this matter to my attention, Mighty Earth and Earthside, they say that that's not true at all.

And they point to examples like Home Depot and Lowe's,

companies that have managed to harness wood from Indonesian forests sustainably.

Another type of alternative that is also often talked about is something called ASDIL, which is a composite sidewall material that is used in the walls of certain RVs.

However,

even if you have that ASDIL sticker in your RVs, it doesn't mean that your entire RV is laund-free.

It could be in the floors of your RV, for example.

You also wrote about how this logging is disrupting indigenous communities in Indonesia.

Can you tell us about some of the villagers you talked to in your reporting?

Yeah, so I went to this part of West Kalimantan province where these villagers are called the Dayak,

indigenous people,

and they rely heavily on the forest for their sustenance.

They basically forage for food there, they collect medicinal plants, they hunt.

And when this company called Mayawana Posada, which is known as Indonesia's last big deforester, came in to clear their forest, it basically left a lot of the villagers

there without land and without their livelihoods and forced a lot of them into poverty.

And I think what's really crucial in this part of Indonesia that I traveled to is that a lot of the villagers said that they did not give any consent for the lands to be cleared.

And this is a violation of Indonesian law.

So basically, the forest is not just a resource for them, it was a sacred space that was central to their identity and their culture.

And they say that ancestors had always instructed them to keep their forest intact.

Swee Lee Wee wrote about Lawan and its value to the RV industry for the New York Times.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Next week, Kai Rizzall and I will host a conversation about the the economy and climate change with award-winning science writer Elizabeth Colbert.

You can find out more about it at marketplace.org/slash climate.

Coming Coming up.

Years of work and investment and memories just up in flames was hard.

Rebuilding after a factory fire.

But first, let's do the numbers.

U.S.

stock markets were closed for the holiday, but because we're starting a new month, let's look back on what August brought for the major indices.

The Dow rose 4.5%, the NASDAQ advanced 3.9% in August, and the SP 500 added 3.5% last month.

Across the pond today, the FTSE in London rose about a tenth of a percent.

In Germany, the DAX found close to six-tenths percent.

And in Paris, the CAC 40 barely budged.

As I said, this being a road trip kind of holiday, let's check in on gas prices.

The national average, according to AAA, $3.19 a gallon.

In Washington State, gas will run you $4.39 on average.

And in Washington, D.C., the average price is $3.26.

You're listening to Marketplace.

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This is Marketplace.

I'm Amy Scott.

The question of which jobs AI will and won't take over, that's an active discussion here in the United States.

And same goes in China, where the country's cabinet, the state council, recently agreed to, quote, vigorously promote the large-scale commercial application of artificial intelligence.

At a recent conference in Shanghai, Marketplace's Jennifer Pack spoke to some Chinese AI firms and sent this report.

At the World AI Conference in Shanghai, over 800 exhibitors display their latest tech.

Companies, and they're almost all Chinese here, showcase how you can talk to AI like it was human.

Here's Ant Group's Annie Chen demonstrating its AI doctor.

Hi, Dr.

Mao.

I kept waking up early this past two days.

What's up with that?

Nine seconds go by, then

waking up early could be a sign of sleep maintenance disorder.

I recommend you keep a regular schedule of work and rest.

Others tout how lifelike their AI avatars are.

SenseTime says it can clone influencers.

Then their AI avatars can live stream on e-commerce platforms, a popular way to shop in China, says SenseTimes Leaping.

AI avatars can live stream 24 hours a day.

So what happens to the humans?

A regular live streaming studio requires about four workers to run.

Now, you might only need one or two people to operate the AI avatar.

But he says AI avatars help human influencers do more live streams, not replace them.

On the robotics floor, humanoids are boxing, dancing, and here's one playing a steel drum.

The tune is slightly off-key.

Walking past is visitor Mao Zeheng,

I've not seen anything impressive at this AI show.

And he's also not worried about being replaced by AI.

I mean, food delivery, and autonomous cars aren't even allowed in most places in China.

How can they replace us delivery guys?

Not likely in the short term.

But no jobs last forever, says Cheng Su Ray.

He's the co-founder of FingerDance, an AI sign languages interpreter.

Yes, AI will reduce the number of jobs like in customer service.

But I think AI can solve 80% of the trivial work, and we as humans can focus on the key jobs.

Like software engineering.

And there will be new jobs for humans, says Mao Shuhan, co-founder of robotics firm PhiBot.

For example, in our research and development of robots, we need humans to do robot testing and safety checks.

Later, a young AI worker told me off-mic that AI is evolving fast.

He's got to learn to work with it or be replaced by it.

In Shanghai, I'm Jennifer Pack for Marketplace.

For small business owners, expecting the unexpected and learning as you go, it's kind of the name of the game.

But even then, there are some things you just can't prepare for.

Matthew Wicker is the owner of Wicker Wicker Woodworks.

We checked in with him about a year and a half ago to hear about his business in Portland, Oregon, selling handmade furniture for vinyl records.

Now he's dealing with his biggest challenge yet.

On August 13th, 2025, the warehouse where we build all of our furniture, basically run the whole business out of, caught fire and burned down.

We were there for five years.

It was where the company really took off.

It was like we were a little company with just three employees

and yeah, we probably made about 25,000 pieces in that building.

Just all that

years of work and investment and memories and

just up in flames was hard.

It was hard to see.

We had probably about 100 orders that were just about done or done in there.

We did the inventory for the insurance.

And so we kind of went through what we paid for all of our equipment and stuff.

And then we found the replacement costs.

And I would say it's almost about 75% more.

All the products we use are from family-owned Portland companies.

So whether they import them or they produce them here.

So the tariffs didn't totally hit us as hard as most companies,

but things like screws and machines, those kind of products that

just aren't available to be made here.

And even the machines that are made here

take parts that are imported.

So it's all totally affected the whole supply chain in one way or another.

It's been really incredible the amount of support we've gotten from our community here in Portland.

Immediately, my friend who has a warehouse down the street was like, I got tools, I got space, get over here and get back up and so like three days after the fire we were already moving tools into our new space we have we have about 200 outstanding orders right now so our main focus right now is just getting those done in the most timely fashion we can I'm also hoping to salvage some of the wood from the fire and use it in some special pieces because it's like got this beautiful burn on it so we're hoping just to kind of lean into it try to take all the positives out and and try to, you know, build back to maybe not what we were before, but hopefully something better.

Matthew Wicker of Wicker Woodworks in Portland, Oregon.

This final note on the way out, Labor Day edition.

Axios got a first look at which jobs will be exempt from taxes on tips as part of the new Republican tax and spending law.

The list of 68 occupations includes some you might expect, like bartenders and wait staff, rideshare drivers, or hotel bell hops and housekeepers, but also some less obvious ones like home electricians and plumbers, self-enrichment teachers, and digital content producers.

Eligible workers can deduct up to $25,000 in tips from their taxable income, but only for a few years.

The deduction expires in 2028.

Amir Babawi, Caitlin Esch, John Gordon, Noya Carr, Amanda Peacher, and Stephanie Seek are the Marketplace editing staff.

Kelly Silvera is the news director.

And I'm Amy Scott.

We'll see you tomorrow.

This is APN.

The Trump administration is making deep cuts to education research.

The cancellation notices started coming.

When the contract is cut, the study just dies.

It's all happening just as schools are trying to make use of research to improve reading instruction.

There would not have been a science of reading without the federal funding.

It wouldn't have happened.

I'm Emily Hanford on our new episode of Soul to Story, what the Trump Cuts Mean for the Science of Reading.

Go to your podcast app and follow Soul to Story.