How is Bureau of Labor Statistics data collected, and why is Trump targeting it?

Washington Post

2 days ago

A government agency best known for its number-crunching prowess became the target of the president's criticism last week when a federal jobs report was revised to show a less-than-rosy economic picture.
President Donald Trump ordered the firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after a bleak jobs report showed signs of a slowing economy, and revised figures revealed things were worse for the labor market than initially reported in May and June.
The high-profile firing and fallout has cast a spotlight on the agency's data, which has long been used to measure key markers of the economy. The BLS, an agency of the Labor Department, collects and analyzes data on the labor market and consumer prices, and its reports are used widely throughout government and industry to inform economic decisions.
Here's what you need to know about the agency's data and what happens next.
Trump ordered the firing of McEntarfer last week after a federal jobs report showed a much weaker labor market than many expected and announced that hiring in May and June was downgraded by a quarter of a million jobs fewer than previously reported.
That bleak report caused the president to criticize McEntarfer, a Biden appointee, for overseeing what he called 'faked' jobs numbers. Without evidence, he alleged the jobs numbers had been manipulated for political purposes both last year and this year.
McEntarfer was appointed to the role in 2024 by President Joe Biden and confirmed on a bipartisan Senate vote. Commissioners serve four-year terms and often overlap with multiple presidential administrations. In an email to staff after her ousting, McEntarfer defended the BLS's work.
'BLS produces some of the most closely watched economic data in the nation,' she wrote. 'Our data moves markets because it is some of the most timely and accurate information on economic conditions that businesses and policymakers have.'
BLS collects and analyzes data on a wide range of economic topics, including wages, productivity, labor force participation, import and export prices and consumer prices. Much of the data comes from surveys that the agency conducts with businesses and households or conducts jointly with the Census Bureau.
The data on monthly payroll is collected from a survey of businesses and government agencies, and unemployment numbers are collected from a population survey conducted with the Census. Economists and statisticians check the data for mistakes, combine the data to find trends and then analyze results.
The data collected by BLS is used by government agencies and businesses to understand economic behavior, make investment decisions and plan for expansion or contraction.
The data collected by BLS is considered the best information of what's going on in the labor economy, said Katharine Abraham, an economics professor at the University of Maryland who was the commissioner of the BLS from 1993 to 2001, during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.
'That's not to say that there isn't noise, but it's considered to be the best information we have,' she said.
Other analyses of the labor market and economy are released by private businesses or industry groups, but one of the reasons BLS data is considered so powerful is because of the breadth of information the agency can collect, pulling on its credibility and connections with the Census Bureau and others.
Some economists worry that the shake-up within the BLS could lead to fewer respondents taking surveys. Even before last week, there was concern among some policymakers and staff that government economic data was getting harder to collect and analyze reliably, because of budget strains and falling response rates to government surveys.
The revisions to May and June's jobs numbers showed a much bleaker labor market picture than previously thought — but revisions to job reports are common.
Early versions of the jobs report rely on larger business that respond quickly to surveys, while responses from smaller businesses — often more affected by economic headwinds — filter in later.
'As more information comes in, the numbers get revised. That's just a part of the process,' Abraham said. 'There's a trade off between getting numbers out quickly and having them be as accurate as possible.'
Trump previously criticized another downward revision last year during the Biden administration, falsely saying the figures weren't so much a 'revision' as they were a 'lie.'
He was referring to last August, when the BLS reported that the U.S. economy had created 818,000 fewer jobs from April 2023 through March 2024, marking the largest annual 'benchmark' revision to federal jobs data in 15 years. This initial annual adjustment was part of a standard process in which the Labor Department updates its monthly payroll survey estimates with more comprehensive — but less timely — state unemployment tax records.
Former BLS leaders have criticized the firings as unfounded. The commissioner does not produce the job numbers, nor view them until they are finalized in a report written by career staff, several former commissioners told The Washington Post.
William Beach, who served as commissioner during the Trump administration and into Biden's term, said the commissioner has no ability to alter the reported data under the current system.
'He's making a claim that is just not possible,' Beach said, referring to Trump. 'It's like saying the moon is five miles away. It may look close to you, but it's much farther away.'
Manipulation of the BLS data for political purposes is possible but unlikely to go undetected, experts say. Leadership could infuse political bias into language used to describe the data to the public. Or they could delay or speed up data releases for political advantage. They could also alter the statistical methods used to turn raw survey data into national estimates.
'Somebody could come in and say, 'We're going to change the way we do these calculations with the goal of producing some different result,'' Abraham said. 'But I think it would be hard to even figure out what change might lead to the result you wanted.'
But Abraham said she's less worried about Trump appointing someone who 'rigs the numbers' than she is that the firing will erode public trust in BLS data. Fewer businesses and households respond to the voluntary surveys that are used to gather BLS data if the agency's legitimacy is in doubt. That generally leads to less accurate data being used to set policy and larger monthly revisions, because of delayed responses.
'If people come to believe that data are all rigged anyway, someone might think, why should I bother responding anyway?' Abraham said.