White House hopes monthly U.S. jobs report to continue despite claim by labour statistics nominee

CBC

3 days ago

Donald Trump's selection as next commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) threatens to bring a new level of politicization to what for decades has been a nonpartisan agency issuing reports on the nation's economic health, according to Democrats and some economists.
While many former Labour Department officials say it's unlikely that as commissioner of the department's Bureau of Labour Statistics, E.J. Antoni will be able to distort or alter the economic data, he could change the way it is presented.
Antoni was nominated by Trump after the BLS released a jobs report on Aug. 1 that showed that hiring had weakened in July and was much lower in May and June than the agency had previously reported. Even as the rest of the report contained positive data points for the Trump White House, the president asserted, without evidence, that data had been "rigged" for political reasons and fired the then-BLS chair, Erika McEntarfer, who had been put in the position with bipartisan Senate support.
McEntarfer's firing was criticized even by some Republican Congress members, including senators Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Antoni has been a vocal critic of the government's jobs data in frequent appearances on podcasts and cable TV. He has publicly said that the Labour Department should stop publishing the monthly jobs reports until its data collection processes improve, and rely on quarterly data based on actual employment filings with state unemployment offices.
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When asked at Tuesday's White House briefing whether the jobs report would continue to be released, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration hoped it would be.
"I believe that is the plan and that's the hope," Leavitt said.
Leavitt also defended Antoni's nomination, calling him an "economic expert" who has testified before Congress, adding that "the president trusts him to lead this important department."
Yet Antoni wrongly claimed in the last year of Joe Biden's presidency that the economy had been in recession since 2022; called on the entire Federal Reserve board to be fired for not earning a profit on its Treasury securities holdings; and posted a chart on social media that conflated timelines to suggest inflation under Biden was headed to 15 per cent.
His argument that the U.S. was in a recession rested on a vastly exaggerated measure of housing inflation, based on newly purchased home prices, to artificially make the nation's gross domestic product appear smaller than it was.
"This is actually maybe the worst Antoni content I've seen yet," Alan Cole of the centre-right Tax Foundation said on social media on Tuesday, referring to his recession claim.
Many economists share, to some degree, Antoni's concerns that the government's jobs data has flaws and is threatened by trends such as declining response rates to its surveys. The drop has made the jobs figures more volatile, though not necessarily less accurate over time.
"The stock market moves clearly based on these job numbers, and so people with skin in the game think it's telling them something about the future of their investments," said Brian Albrecht, chief economist at the International Center for Law and Economics. "Could it be improved? Absolutely."
Katharine Abraham, an economist at the University of Maryland who was BLS commissioner under president Bill Clinton, said updating the jobs report's methods would require at least some initial investment.
The government could use more modern data sources, she said, such as figures from payroll processing companies, and fill in gaps with surveys.
UBS economist Alan Detmeister estimates that BLS is now collecting about 18 per cent fewer price quotes for the inflation report than it did earlier this year. He thinks the report will produce more volatile results, though averaged out over time, still reliable.
Ex-commissioner doubts data can be changed
William Beach, who was appointed BLS commissioner by Trump in his first term and also served under Biden, said he is confident that BLS procedures are strong enough to prevent political meddling. He said that when he served as commissioner, he didn't see the figures himself until two days before publication.
"The commissioner does not affect the numbers," Beach said. "They don't collect the data. They don't massage the data."
Regarding the odds of rigging the numbers, Beach said, "I wouldn't put it at complete zero, but I'd put it pretty close to zero."
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Before launching his political career, Trump frequently accused Barack Obama's administration of juking the stats to produce more favourable economic reports, without providing evidence. As president, Trump has frequently assailed the Federal Reserve chair he nominated back in his first term, Jerome Powell.
Antoni requires Senate confirmation.
Sen. Patty Murray, a senior Democrat, called on Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican chair of the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee, to hold a confirmation hearing for Antoni as soon as possible.
It took about six months after McEntarfer was nominated in July 2023 for her to be approved. She was confirmed in an 86-8 vote, meaning she had support from dozens of Republicans.