In some statehouses in the Northeast, it is open season on the federal number-crunchers who calculate the unemployment rate every month.

First, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut, a Democrat, questioned their work. Now Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican, and members of the staff of New York’s Democratic governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, are piling on. Their criticism echoes complaints that had already been lodged by New York City’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, and some of his lieutenants.

All these elected officials say they are certain that things are going much better in the state or city they govern than the official unemployment statistics imply. Something is wrong with the federal government’s jobless numbers, they say. And come to think of it, they add, the longstanding procedure is fundamentally flawed.

Mayor Bloomberg, an independent, was among the first to take issue with the monthly reports, arguing that a federal survey of employers had been registering healthy gains in employment throughout 2012, so the city’s steadily rising unemployment rate could not be accurate.