[moorhosj]

Here is an example:

On the first Friday of every month when the Employment Situation report is released, we get new analysis on jobs created, hours worked and hourly wages. This is great information, the only issue is that the hours and wage information is an average, not a median [2].

If economic reality changes to a point where citizens/politicians/economists become concerned with income inequality, this measure begins to lose it's significance. Average wages could increase while median wages fall. It is still "empirical evidence" but it isn't necessarily measuring what we think or want, labor force participation rates before/after women joined the workforce is an example. We should always be questioning the validity of our economic measures over time.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/07/us-nonfarm-payrolls-aug-2018... [2] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.b.htm