Trump’s latest phase of data war

Donald Trump had many priorities when he returned to the president, and the most urgent thing was to get Winston Churchill back to the Oval Office. The bust of the British wartime prime minister, Trump is a “big fan” who has kept his company during his first term, and has sat next to the gilded fireplace in the office for the past six months lurking in the background of Trump’s meeting with other world leaders. Trump admires Churchill’s brilliance, guiding himself for his photos and formal inauguration portraits, and he sees himself as Churchill, a strange savior of a troubled country. Maybe it’s Churchill’s quote – forgery, as Trump had to keep in mind last week, when he fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika Mcentarfer: “I just believe I’ve shaped my statistics.”

McEntarfer was nominated as BLS chief by Joe Biden in 2023 and confirmed by the Senate by an 86-8 vote, with most Republicans (including current Vice President JD Vance) among Democrats including most. Her background is a high-fly but undisputed government economist who serves on the Census Bureau, the Ministry of Finance and the Economic Advisory Board. Much of her work focuses on the provision and analysis of labor market data: the exact topic of being fired.

On August 1, BLS released its monthly work report, covering July. To save them from political intervention, such reports are published on a strict schedule, and cannot be used even in the BLS Commissioner (or the President) and will not be published until soon. As is common, the July report also includes revised figures for May and June: BLS relies in part on self-report sample Public and private employers, usually have a lag. This time, the revised (which is the estimated number of new jobs in the months, from 240 million to 30 million to 30,000, is very large, piercing the bullish pictures of the economy over the past few weeks and giving a week of good good news for trade-related good. Trump was offended by this, announcing on social media that the numbers were “manipulated” and Mcentarfer came out.

To be fair, it’s hard for Trump to imagine that many presidents have not covered up such bad news. Employment reports are one of the country’s most important economic health indicators, closely watched by investors and policy makers. It provides a deceptive and simple headline judgment for the economic performance of the government, especially on the current controversial topic, but always the main focus. When the favorable data of the BLS was not played in the way Richard Nixon wanted in 1971, he established what was called the “Jewish Count” to eliminate the subversive elements that were said to be the inside of the bureau. Four people were picked out for the surname of the “Jew” and demoted or reassigned. Nixon’s intervention has led to new rules to protect the integrity of government statistics, including regulations on when and how to publish reports. Of course, the president has been complaining about unfavorable numbers, but their influence on them has diminished.

In recent years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has had to tighten its belt. According to Bloomberg, its budget has actually dropped by 20% since 2010. Even though further budget cuts under Trump have affected the agency, the situation is relatively good Dogemaybe because it is considered so important, or maybe because it sounds boring. Still, Trump has been trying to undermine the inning for years. He has been officially entering politics for a long time. In October 2012, the work report showed that employment fell below 8% for the first time since Barack Obama became president. Trump – most famous at the time for his missions on “apprenticeship” and promoting the Burt Conspiracy – directed CNBC to call the number “incorrect”, suggesting it had been manipulated to help Obama’s re-tilt opportunity. “After the election, they will make corrections.” (In the post-election report, the September figures remain the same.) Labor statistics formed the culmination of Trump’s 2015 campaign announcement, during which he insisted: “Our real unemployment rate is 18% to 20%. Don’t believe 5.6. Don’t believe.” In response to a major adjustment to the previous year’s work creation figures released in August 2024, it was a horrible moment for Kamala Harris’ fragile presidential campaign – Trump accused the Biden administration of fraudulently manipulating job statistics to mask the true extent of the economic devastation they have caused to the United States. In the same speech, he said: “They hoped that this would be after November 5, which doesn’t mean that much, but it came out early, so there were patriots there, right?” ”The patriot was originally McKent.

If Trump’s criticism over the years is incoherent, it is at least consistent: For example, an indicator of truth—for example, a revision or original figure about the work report, is what makes him look better, or makes his opponent look worse. Just like on other stages, the facts depend on Trump’s personal view of the world and his rhetorical needs. In the chaos, it’s easy to catch the irony: a bad job report will increase pressure on the Fed to lower interest rates, as Trump has been asking for it, but if that’s wrong, maybe the pressure will be reduced? However, this idea misses the point. Trump’s smooth relationship with facts doesn’t mean they don’t matter to him: as long as they say what he wants, they matter, and if they don’t, he’s happy to ask for something new. Dismissal of McENTARFER drives home what should be obvious at the moment: Don’t trust often, trust I.

Trump’s political project may represent a rejection of Washington’s technocracy, but it’s hard to execute the administration or complete your agenda without statistics. The federal bureaucracy is maintained by dozens of statistical agencies, units and programs, all of which collect data in areas such as crime, social security, animal disease, housing, behavioral health, income, small businesses, large businesses, large businesses, crop prices, transportation and energy. There is a chief U.S. statistician, located in a strong management and budget office, overseeing this decentralized but productive institution. The swamp makes its own food in the form of paperwork.

Some of these programs were reduced in size during Trump’s first administration, and some now no longer exists—even if the chief data officer of the international development agency is for today’s chief data officers, even if the position is authorized by Congress. But Trump has gone from being a bit laissez-free on his first semester data to second semester data. Since January, he has taken active action to control the information produced, escrow and published by the federal government. Under his orders, institutions buried climate data, rewrite history, redefine categories and definitions (most notably gender), cut research and undermine or eliminate independent auditors. Trump’s Commerce Secretary dissolved the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee in March; in June, his Health and Public Services Secretary cleared the committee that made vaccine recommendations. Meanwhile, the government has been seeking unprecedented access to data held by Medicaid and Food Post beneficiaries held by U.S., ostensibly part of an effort to eliminate fraud and waste, but is actually for immigration enforcement purposes. California Attorney General, who is a boycott request, submitted it era“The ongoing pursuit of data and the ongoing pursuit of power are different.”

Data are never perfect, and they are not neutral: the content of the government’s decision to record and the role of these records always reflects its priorities. (In the United States, political life has begun a competition for centuries, and since 1790, the census includes racial identity, in a wide variety of categories; in France, in France, in France, in its position, theoretically replaces racial identity, and the collection of data collected by the government on race is illegal. His own authority. In a more open form of government, transparency and freedom of information may enhance the power of external actors, i.e., the chairman, business, voters-making, and acting as a counterweight for support (or assemble to support the executive), while the right to privacy provides a check for over-appropriation of the government. Trump recognizes that knowledge is power and is therefore concentrating.

The consequences may be difficult to control. Other countries that try to manipulate their economic data or inspire bureaucracy face difficulties. In Turkey, where government welfare is related to inflation, formal interest rates (highest 85% in 2022) vs. real interest rates (estimated in June 2022, one hundred and sixty percent) push millions of dollars to poverty and help the real estate bubble. During China’s huge leap, rural officials often exaggerated their numbers under tremendous pressure to meet agricultural production standards, further boosting their targets and causing famine and causing tens of millions of deaths.

After McEntarfer’s expulsion, the White House issued a press release criticizing her for “a long history of inaccuracy and incompetence,” which “completely erodes public trust in government agencies accused of spreading key data used by policymakers and businesses to make consequences decisions.” Whether it’s spin or downright revisionism depends on your point of view. The BLS came under scrutiny during the Biden Administration, too—after a flubbed jobs-report rollout last year, during which a handful of banks got early access to the data, an internal inquiry called out a number of human errors, and admonished the agency, in terms that only a bureaucrat could love, to “develop a culture of enterprise-wide collaboration, break down silos, and work across organizational lines to ensure success.” Budget cuts and staff cuts over the past few months have led to concerns that the agency’s extension is too thin, and it is conceivable that Trump might share those concerns, although McEntarfer’s summary firing hints about other situations.

For many observers, it was Trump that caused the erosion of public trust. Two former BLS commissioners, including William Beach, Trump’s first-appointed role, signed a statement condemning McEntarfer’s removal and paying tribute to his former colleagues at the bureau. “Decision makers must understand that government statistics are fair and of the highest quality. By raising doubts about this, the president is harming the United States.” (Charles Murray Cherry Choice Statistics can lead to suspicious conclusions, “Agree.” )

Mcentarfer has not made public comments since his dismissal, but owned by her boss, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-Deremer. She wrote that she supported Trump’s decision to replace Commissioner in order to “make sure the American people can trust important and influential data from the BLS”, but that may be too late. When it comes to public data, the occurrence of interference can be as disrupted as actual interventions, and removing independent and trustworthy officials will make it harder to distinguish the differences. It can earn trust, but it can teach distrust. Supporters of Trump’s most Orthodox Church learned to distrust the government long ago. Now everyone else is learning the same lesson. ♦