Analysts warn that Trump’s meddling could undermine the independence of the Labor Department agency, with the potential for unforeseen consequences. If businesses think that the federal government’s employment statistics are being shaped by political pressure, they may discount the data entirely.
“I was just informed that our Country’s ‘Jobs Numbers’ are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala’s chances of Victory,” Trump claimed on Truth Social, without evidence. “I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.”
In another post, Trump provided more context for the firing. “In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” he said.
“It was norm-shattering,” Amy O’Hara, a professor at Georgetown University and former Census Bureau official, told TMD. “Depending on the statistical series, there are revisions, and sometimes they go up, and sometimes they go down. Sometimes the changes are small, sometimes they are large, but it is with the assurance that there are statistical professionals making sure that the public can trust those numbers.”
The payroll data revisions for May and June provided the basis of much of the administration’s criticisms. According to Hassett, the large downward revisions to the payroll gains for May and June were “hard evidence” for the firing. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro echoed the sentiment, claiming that the fluctuation signaled “either incompetence or political interference.”
Setting aside the data’s trustworthiness, those revisions painted a particularly concerning picture for the Trump administration. While previous months’ job numbers had seemed fairly strong, the revised data made it clear that the economy has been slowing over the summer. In May, only 19,000 jobs were added, and in June, only 14,000 jobs were added—a precipitous drop from the 139,000 and 147,000 respective job gains initially reported. All of this means the jobs market hasn’t been weathering an uncertain economy as well as the Trump administration might have hoped, particularly with July’s initial payroll growth coming in under expectations.
The payroll data for May and June did shift an unusual amount—in fact, the combined two-month revisions were the largest recorded outside of the COVID pandemic. However, even major revisions are not indicative of political interference or incompetence.
The BLS collects its monthly jobs data through the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey, which asks businesses and government agencies to submit employment information for the month. The information is seasonally adjusted and checked for errors before being released to the public. But the stats change over time, because many survey recipients do not respond to the BLS quickly enough for their answers to make it into the initial report. Normally, only 60 percent of businesses send their data on time.
The data for the late responders are then included in later revisions. Notably, those businesses may be ones that are less well-equipped to navigate the Trump administration’s tariffs and other economic challenges. They are more likely to be smaller businesses without the experience and capital that larger businesses have to soften the impact of an unpredictable trade policy. Additionally, the seasonal adjustment factors are also revised, which can lead to changes in the final payroll numbers.
“Revisions are a feature, not a bug,” Erica Groshen, the BLS commissioner from 2013 to 2017, told TMD. “It is a designed feature of these programs, and these are not errors.”
And despite Trump’s targeting of McEntarfer, the commissioner does not help calculate the underlying jobs numbers. “The first time the commissioner sees anything is after the estimates have already been finalized,” Katharine Abraham, the BLS commissioner from 1993 through 2001, told TMD. “It’s just not the case that the commissioner has the opportunity to put a finger on the scale to change the numbers, given the procedures that are in place.”
This also means whoever Trump appoints to replace McEntarfer will not be able to directly skew BLS survey data. But firing her could still bring about “dire” consequences, according to Groshen, particularly stemming from a declining public perception of the agency’s independence and reliability. “The statistical system depends on trust. People don’t use data if it’s not trustworthy,” Groshen said. “When you destroy trust in the statistical system, you are destroying part of our national infrastructure. You will make it harder for people to make decisions, and they will resort to worse information or no information at all.”
This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has taken steps that have undermined the BLS’ ability to report accurate economic data. Here is what Grayson Logue wrote for The Dispatch in March:
Since taking office, Trump’s political appointees have criticized how some economic measurements like gross domestic product (GDP) are calculated. Simultaneously, the administration has shuttered several advisory committees of independent economists, statisticians, academics, and industry representatives that helped federal economic agencies maintain the accuracy—including keeping after-the-fact revisions to a minimum—and relevance of those metrics.
…
Earlier this month, the Trump administration terminated multiple economic advisory committees that assist the federal government’s three main economic statistical agencies: BLS, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), and the Census Bureau. The closures began with the Commerce Department ending the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee (FESAC)—a panel that advised all three agencies—and the BEA Advisory Committee. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a public notice on the committee’s websites that their purposes “have been fulfilled.” Two weeks later, the BLS informed the members of two of its advisory panels—the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and the Data Users Advisory Committee (DUAC)—that the committees had been terminated.
If businesses eventually lose trust in federal economic statistics, experts warn, the result could ultimately be less reliable data. “If they become convinced that the numbers are biased and can’t be trusted, that could have an adverse effect on response rates,” Abraham said. The lower response rates are for BLS surveys, the less likely the resulting reports are to accurately reflect the state of job growth. And already declining rates of response to the CES survey may have even contributed to the larger revisions in recent months. Rates have dropped significantly since the pandemic, currently sitting at roughly 40 percent compared to 60 percent in 2019. Undermining trust in the data could worsen this phenomenon—revisions have been in line with prepandemic averages in recent years, but a further decline in response rates could change that.
Trump has indicated that he plans to name a successor to McEntarfer in the coming days, but the effects of having a loyalist in charge of an agency like the BLS remain to be seen. “You don’t really want your own person in there,” Abraham said. “You want somebody who is going to give the facts straight-up.”
