Statement by the President Upon Announcing the Appointment of a Panel To Review Employment Statistics.
THE STATISTICS of employment and unemployment are of vital importance as measures of the economic health and wellbeing of the nation. They serve as guides to public policy in the development of measures designed to strengthen the economy, to improve programs to re-employ the unemployed, and to provide assistance to those who remain unemployed. It is my objective to maintain and enhance the quality of our statistics in this and in all other fields of government, so that the public may have the highest degree of confidence in them.
Note: The statement was issued as part of a White House release announcing that the President had appointed a committee of technical experts to appraise the status of the information available on employment and unemployment and to make recommendations as to changes or improvements. The release lists the members of the committee as follows: chairman, Robert Aaron Gordon, Chairman of the Department of Economics, University of California; Robert Dorfman, Professor of Economics, Harvard University; Martin R. Gainsbrugh, Chief Economist of the National Industrial Conference Board and President of the American Statistical Association; Albert E. Rees, Professor of Economics, University of Chicago; Stanley H. Ruttenberg, Director of the Research Department, AFL-CIO; and Frederick F. Stephart, Professor of Statistics, Princeton University.
Also released was a letter from the Secretary of Labor, dated November 8, 1961, proposing the establishment of the committee.
John F. Kennedy, Statement by the President Upon Announcing the Appointment of a Panel To Review Employment Statistics. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/235396