When the Labor Department releases the nation’s unemployment rate Thursday, there will a lot less number-fudging than there was just 18 months ago — and I’m going to prove it in this column. In late 2013, I wrote about some Census Bureau dastardly deeds involving the Current Population Survey (CPS), which Labor uses to come up with its monthly unemployment rate. Thanks to a whistle-blower, I found out that Julius Buckmon, a former data collector in the Philadelphia Census region whose territory was Washington, was faking surveys. Buckmon said it was on the orders of others. Those “others” denied it. Because of the ... (full story)