Wrong jobs numbers are sometimes just wrong jobs numbers.
President Trump displayed a fast trigger finger when he fired the person overseeing the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report. He said the less-than-stellar numbers reported for July were “rigged” against him.
Experts across the political divide said the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, despite some challenges, are not being manipulated to aid Democrats or derail Mr. Trump.
William Beach, commissioner at the bureau during the first Trump administration, said the president’s complaints were “totally groundless.” Heidi Shierholz, the Labor Department’s chief economist under President Obama, said Mr. Trump is tainting the data himself by calling into question what had been almost universally accepted data.
“The president’s belief that the BLS commissioner personally ‘produced’ the jobs numbers is preposterous and shows a complete misunderstanding of how government statistical agencies operate,” Ms. Shierholz wrote for the Economic Policy Institute, where she serves as president. “These data are the product of careful work by hundreds of expert economists, statisticians, and civil servants following transparent, well-established methodologies.”
Mr. Trump fired Erika McEntarfer last week after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate ticked up in July and the economy added just 73,000 jobs. The bureau revised the previous two months’ data, erasing more than 250,000 jobs credited to the economy under Mr. Trump.
The president said he fired Ms. McEntarfer not for this summer’s numbers but for the bureau’s performance under President Biden, when the agency reported steady job growth from spring 2023 through early 2024. In August 2024, the bureau suddenly decided the numbers were too rosy, to the tune of an 818,000 job overestimate.
The president smelled a rat.
“It’s a highly political situation. It’s totally rigged. Smart people know it,” he told CNBC.
Experts said Mr. Trump is right to suggest critical analysis because of problems with the data itself. Still, they said there is no proof that someone is manipulating the data for political purposes or even could.
“He’s right to point out inconsistencies and problems with the data. But the idea this represents a concerted or conscious effort to make him look bad, we just don’t have evidence of that,” said Steven A. Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies.
The jobs data comes from the Current Employment Statistics survey. The Bureau of Labor Statistics asks about 121,000 businesses to report their hiring and firing activities each month.
The unemployment numbers come from the Current Population Survey, which the Census Bureau operates for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It surveys 60,000 households monthly.
Both have problems obtaining responses.
The Current Population Survey’s response rate has dropped from 85% a decade ago to less than 70% in recent months.
The Current Employment Statistics response rates hovered above 60% until the pandemic crisis. They now sit at about 42% to 43%.
Many businesses reply after the initial reports, explaining the need for revisions.
Betsey Stevenson, a professor at the University of Michigan who served as the Labor Department’s chief economist in 2010 and 2011, said the Bureau of Labor Statistics faces the same pressure as any business: It needs to balance fast, good and cheap.
However, its budget hasn’t kept up with inflation and its data collection needs modernizing, Ms. Stevenson told The Washington Times.
“These trade-offs are decisions made by Congress,” she said. “The president seems frustrated by his own party’s policy choices around national statistics. It is unfortunate that the BLS commissioner is being made a scapegoat, particularly as firing her is only likely to reduce reliability as thousands of BLS employees now realize that their jobs could be at risk if they deliver bad news.”
About 2,000 people work at the bureau.
Analysts said dozens, or even hundreds, would have to be involved in the scam if the data were intentionally manipulated.
The worry is that Mr. Trump’s complaints could taint the data collection by making respondents wary.
Mr. Camarota said the irony in Mr. Trump’s criticism is that the numbers, when viewed in context, don’t undercut the president’s argument.
He said they are in line with expectations for a significant drop in the number of illegal immigrants, which is exactly what the administration says it is doing through tougher enforcement policies.
“We have good evidence that illegal immigrants are heading home,” he said.
