Sometimes wrong jobs numbers are just wrong jobs numbers.
President Trump displayed a fast trigger finger in firing the person who oversees the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report, saying the less-than-stellar numbers reported for July were “rigged” against him.
But experts on all sides of the political divide said the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, while facing some challenges, are not being manipulated to aid Democrats or derail Mr. Trump.
William Beach, commissioner at BLS during the first Trump administration, said the president’s complaints were “totally groundless.” Heidi Shierholz, the Labor Department’s former chief economist under President Obama, said Mr. Trump himself is tainting the data 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 now 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 after the BLS reported last week that the unemployment rate ticked up in July and the economy added just 73,000 jobs. BLS also revised down the previous two months’ data, erasing more than 250,000 jobs it had previously credited to the economy under Mr. Trump.
The president said he booted Ms. McEntarfer not for this summer’s numbers but BLS’s performance under Mr. Biden, when the agency reported steady job growth from spring 2023 through early 2024 — then in August, 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 taking a critical eye toward the data, because of problems with the data itself. But they said there’s no proof that someone is — or even could — manipulate the data for political purposes.
“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 data on jobs comes from the Current Employment Statistics survey. Each month, BLS prods about 121,000 businesses to report back their hiring and firing activities.
Unemployment comes from the Current Population Survey, which is run by the Census Bureau for BLS and surveys 60,000 households each month.
Both face problems getting people to respond.
CPS’s response rate has dropped from 85% a decade ago to below 70% in recent months.
CES response rates used to hover above 60% before dipping below that mark amid the coronavirus pandemic, then sliding further. It now sits at about 42-43%.
Many of those other businesses will reply later, which explains the need for revisions.
Betsey Stevenson, a professor at the University of Michigan who served as chief economist at the Labor Department in 2010 and 2011, said BLS faces the same pressure as any business: It needs to balance fast, good and cheap.
But 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 BLS.
Analysts said dozens, or even hundreds, would have to be in on the scam if the data were being intentionally manipulated.
The worry is that Mr. Trump’s complaints could become a self-fulfilling prophecy by tainting the collection, making respondents more wary of participating in the future.
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 very much in line with what would be expected if there was a major drop in the number of illegal immigrants in the country — which is exactly what the administration says it’s doing through tougher enforcement policies.
“We have good evidence that illegal immigrants are heading home,” he said.
