Other agencies — like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Securities and Exchange Commission — use macroeconomic modeling, behavioral science and other tools to understand the impact of their regulations. While the priorities of these agencies may still be shaped by political appointees, these efforts make regulations smarter and sometimes lead to breakthroughs in research.

In contrast, the labor board has been unable to effectively defend itself when its rules are challenged. In 2011, business groups challenged a rule requiring employers to display posters telling workers of their right to form a union. When the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down the rule, Judge Karen Henderson castigated the board for its “speculative assertions” that the rule was necessary: The board used three law review articles, which are not peer-reviewed, to support its claims, a foundation that neither social scientists nor other enforcement agencies would rely on.

The labor board will never be wholly independent of politics. But a revivified Division of Economic Research could function in a way that’s similar to the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, by grounding the agency’s policies and labor law decisions on data and analysis that would be part of the public record.

The labor board could use such expertise right now on the question of when a company has enough “indirect control” over another company’s workers to be treated as a “joint employer.” In the Obama administration, the board adopted a more expansive indirect control standard, which was overruled by the board appointed by President Trump. That decision was then vacated because of a conflict of interest.