Why Trump fired U.S. job leaders to worry about economists | U.S. joblessness and employment data

As for more than a hundred years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release its latest monthly work report on Friday.

But Donald Trump’s daily monthly update on the health of the U.S. job market has been overshadowed Dismiss the agency’s specialistErika Mcentarfer, statistics for July last month were released for hours.

BLS data are parsed by Fed officials and company bosses on Wall Street, the United States. It is also widely watched and admired – as an international barometer The U.S. economy.

Both liberals and conservative economists criticize Trump nominated replacement On BLS, people are concerned about what will happen to the agency after the dramatic changes. This is our knowledge of what is happening to the bureau.

What does the Bureau of Labor Statistics do?

The bureau reported key economic statistics by investigating employers and prices. Data are published every month in the labor market, including the current unemployment rate and the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the cost of a basket of goods and services. These data are a major month snapshot of the U.S. economy and its changes over time.

Why did Trump fire the agency’s commissioner?

Last month, the bureau announced that the U.S. added just 73,000 jobs in July, much lower than expected and made Major revisions Labor market statistics were previously released in May and June. In the past two months, the number of jobs added in the economy has dropped significantly by more than 250,000.

Trump has been angry as he spent months boasting about the impact of the trade war. “Today, our work numbers are meant to make Republicans bad,” he declared on social media.

Hours after the numbers were released, Trump announced that he was firing Mcentarfer, who “will be replaced by someone who is more capable and qualified.”

Has Trump fired the agency’s commissioner changed its business?

Economists say Trump’s sack has not changed the inning. Although the White House has laid off employees on the BLS, just like the entire federal workforce. Since Trump took office, the agency has See The recruitment was frozen, losing 15% of its labor force.

The bureau said yes Layoffs It targets CPI’s data collection and does not say it has made any significant changes to the employer’s investigation.

For now, the bureau’s actions remain largely the same, economists say. William Watrowski, a long-time leader in the bureau, is currently his acting specialist. But there are still many questions about the bureau’s future, especially after Trump announced the nomination for McEntarfer’s substitute.

Who does Trump want to appoint as the agency’s new commissioner?

Trump nomination EJ Antonichief economist of the Conservative Heritage Foundation, serves as bureau commissioner.

Anthony is Project 2025 – The Heritage Foundation’s right-wing blueprint transformed the U.S. government – was a voice critic of the bureau last year, claiming it manipulated the numbers to make them more favorable to Joe Biden and Democrats. Last November, Anthony said on Twitter that Elon Musk’s so-called government efficiency needed to “pick up a chainsaw” to the bureau.

“Month after month, former President Biden and others have overly optimistic estimates of everything from work growth to the size of the economy, only to revise these figures frequently and quietly in the future,” Anthony wrote in May.

Anthony “will ensure that the numbers released are honest and accurate.” Trump said in announcing the appointment.

Congress has not confirmed Anthony, and has not yet set a date for confirmation.

Why did the bureau change its work figures in May and June?

Revisions are the standard for the bureau to report on the labor market, which is based on a survey of employers nationwide.

A large number of revisions usually occur when employers spend more time completing bureau investigations or modifying their own data as a result of changes in circumstances. Economists point out that uncertainty leads to greater revisions. For example, as employers are dealing with different shutdown laws and the spread of the virus, the pandemic’s work numbers are midwifery work numbers.

The impact of Trump’s tariffs on data collection may be a major factor in the revised earlier this year. Businesses keep reporting Roller Coaster Level Uncertainty about tariff policies, small American businesses were immersed in people’s emotions in the spring and then rose again in the summer.

“We’ve already gone through a much larger revision period,” said Michael Madowitz, chief economist at the Roosevelt Institute. “It’s like the standard, and it’s actually the idea of ​​revealing this big political issue – it’s a truly unprecedented political situation. ”

Has the bureau experienced any political struggles before?

This is not the first time the bureau has been accused of manipulating political figures. In the mid-1990s, then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan criticized the way the bureau calculated CPI. Greenspan believes the agency overestimated the CPI, making inflation appear higher than it actually is.

Thomas Stapleford, a historian of Notre Dame and author of The Cost of Living in America: The Political History of Economic Statistics, noted that Greenspan’s criticism led to a series of hearings, and the bureau’s methodology was questioned and debated. There was a congressional hearing and a committee of economists was established to investigate the method.

“All these external experts are studying all the detailed studies of these methods and from [the bureau],” Stapleford said. “In my opinion, if you have questions about methodology, it’s the approach to it. ”

But Trump has pushed the inning into unknown waters. Stapleford noted that Mccentarfer’s sack was the first time the president fired the bureau chief.

“In the eyes of critics, the government is pushing numbers in a specific direction. It’s not for reasons that it can be publicly justified methodologically, but because it wants different results,” Stapleford said. “It’s very big with how the bureau has worked in the past.”

What does this future mean?

The Commissioner was not involved in most of the Bureau’s daily operations. How a new leader might have collected and reported data for a long time, but there are protections, but any significant changes will be subject to public scrutiny.

“The commissioner is not directly involved in the data calculations. Most BLS employees are long-term civil servants. They have been there for a long time and they have all kinds of protections around them,” Stapleford said. “If the new commissioner starts to force major methodological changes, I think that if those changes are controversial, it will cause a lot of red flags.”

But even if no significant changes are made immediately, the fact that Trump listed the agency’s data as questioned could confuse Americans about whether the data can be trusted.

“Building credibility is much longer than losing it,” Madowitz said. “I don’t think any experts involved are concerned about the credibility of BLS jobs, but I know much less about the amount of filtering for the average person right now.”

For example, Madowitz points out how the science surrounding climate change is clear.

“But the public stance on one side of science, on the other side, is confusing the public,” Madowitz said. “If that’s how we decide to understand the economy, it’s really bad.”