We're leading with a noted economist who thinks $120,000 a year is a small price to pay to be sure we're measuring the economy in a cutting-edge way.

I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. New Century Advisors Chief economist Claudia Somm is the one who came up with a closely watched economic indicator that bears her name, the S-M-Rul, S-A-H-M.

She's been writing that it's a mistake for the administration to pull the plug on an obscure volunteer committee of experts that had been meeting once in a while to make sure that economic measures keep up with the times.

And she joins us here. Welcome.

Great to be here. Thank you.

Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee.

Now, this sounds like something an anesthesiologist would use to put you to sleep, but it's, the committee is going away.

And this is actually keeping you awake.

That's right.

There's so much uncertainty about the economy, where we're

headed, and it is so important that we have the very best data, the very best statistics on the

U.S. economy, and that is no small feat. We have a $30 trillion economy. We have a $70 million

people in the labor force.

It's a very dynamic economy, which is super, but that makes it harder to keep the measurement going.

And this advisory committee has been in place for many years, and it is a resource to the main

statistical, economic statistical agencies as a sounding board, as a,

how could we improve these statistics? What's the best research? And so for me, big picture,

we want the best data we can have. And that committee was one resource that we had towards getting

those data. And to see that taken away, it's a red flag.

The Commerce Department, under the new Trump administration, says the work of this committee

is done, that its mission is, quote, fulfilled. This is not your view.

The work of a committee that is advising on statistics, how to make them more accurate, how to make

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