President Donald Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on Friday, hours after a disappointing July jobs report showed weaker-than-expected employment growth and significant downward revisions for the prior two months. Trump took to Truth Social to accuse McEntarfer of rigging the data to embarrass him and the Republican Party.
Background and Allegations
McEntarfer, 52, holds a PhD in Economics from Virginia Tech and has worked at the Census Bureau and the Council of Economic Advisers. She was nominated by former President Joe Biden in 2023 and confirmed by the Senate in January 2024. Trump alleges that McEntarfer began manipulating jobs data during the 2024 election cycle to boost the Biden administration’s record, then revised the numbers downward after his victory. “In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” Trump wrote. “Just like when they had three great days around the 2024 Presidential Election, and then, those numbers were ‘taken away’ on November 15, 2024, right after the Election, when the Jobs Numbers were massively revised DOWNWARD, making a correction of over 818,000 Jobs — A TOTAL SCAM.”
Backlash and Defense
Trump’s allegations have not been supported by any credible evidence. Former BLS Commissioner William Beach, handpicked by Trump himself, refuted the claims in an NBC interview: “It’s not possible for the commissioner to have that influence. The commissioner doesn’t see the numbers until they are completely finished.” The Friends of BLS, an independent organization chaired by Beach, Paul Schroeder, and Erica Groshen, issued a statement denouncing the firing as “baseless” and warned of eroded trust in U.S. economic data. “This rationale for firing Dr. McEntarfer is without merit and undermines the credibility of federal economic statistics. When leaders of other nations have politicized economic data, it has destroyed public trust in all official statistics and in government science,” the statement said.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett defended Trump on Sunday, claiming that the BLS has become increasingly sloppy with its calculations since the COVID-19 pandemic. “When Covid happened, because response rates went down a lot… revision rates skyrocketed,” Hassett said. He also noted that the July report’s downward revision of 258,000 jobs from May and June totals was the most significant since 1965. “What we need is a fresh set of eyes at the BLS,” he added.
The firing marks an unprecedented political intervention in the BLS, an agency traditionally seen as independent and nonpartisan. Economists and market participants are concerned that the loss of trust in official statistics could have long-term consequences for financial markets, policy decisions, and business planning. The Department of Labor has not yet announced an interim or permanent replacement for McEntarfer.