It’s much worse than that.
Every single example mentioned by the GP isn’t just a statistical measure, they measure of a wildly political (as in, defined by humans in a deeply imprecise manner) issues:
> - whether crime is up or down
Which kinds of crimes? In which political boundaries? In which reporting period? Did definitions change? Is reporting down because of ineffective policing? Is reporting up because of effective policing? That statistical games played with crime stats are criminal.
> - whether the earth is warming or not
There is a reason the phrase “global warming” went out of fashion in preference of “climate change”. Warming up how much? Over what time period? With what error bounds? Assuming which runaway processes? In which areas? Due to which causes? What are the error bounds around the sign of the change?
> - how many people live in poverty
The government literally draws a line in the sand and declares anyone below a certain income level is living in poverty. Who set the level? Why did they set it there? What is the standard of living at that income level? In which areas? How long do people live in poverty? What, if anything, prevents them from moving upward? What is there effective standard of living after government programs and charitable giving is taken into account?
> - what the rate of inflation is
This is literally defined by bureaucrats at central banks. Inflation according to which index? How were the index components chosen? How are the index components weighted? Over what time period? In which areas? Even the concept of “inflation” is highly suspect and basically incoherent.
- how much social security or healthcare costs
Over what time period? How did the demographics change? How about inflation? Where did the cash flows go and how did they net out? Which purchasing regimes were in place? How did the programs change? What was the quality of the services?