Trump nominates Bureau of Statistics critic to lead agency after previous head fired over bleak report

Independent

2 days ago

The Trump administration has nominated economist Dr. E.J. Antoni to be the next Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after the president alarmed observers by firing the previous chief at the beginning of the month over his anger at a poor July jobs report.
'I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Highly Respected Economist, Dr. E.J. Antoni, as the next Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics,' Trump wrote on Truth Social, nodding towards the previous firing. 'Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE. I know E.J. Antoni will do an incredible job in this new role. Congratulations E.J.!'
Antoni currently serves as chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, a think tank closely aligned with the administration. He was a contributor to the group's Project 2025, a controversial blueprint document outlining many of the moves the Trump administration has taken in office.
The economist was reportedly among a handful of candidates under discussion after Trump removed Erika McEntarfer, whom he accused of using 'phony' numbers in the July jobs report that showed private companies adding just 73,000 positions, below projections.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon pushed for Antoni's nomination shortly after McEntarfer was fired.
'E.J. Antoni as the new head of Bureau of Labor Statistics—that's what we're pushing. He's the guy that almost single-handedly took it down by going through their numbers,' Bannon said on his podcast.
Antoni, who will face Senate confirmation, wrote on X last week that the bureau, part of the Labor Department, needed to revise its methods to 'rebuild the trust that has been lost over the last several years.'
The bureau conducts wide-ranging surveys of American households and business and its statistics are an important benchmark for the wider economy, impacting everything from investment returns to pension payments.
'If the administration undermines the quality of economic statistics, it would make it impossible for our tax laws to work as Congress intended,' Greg Leiserson, a senior fellow at the Tax Law Center at NYU Law, told the Wall Street Journal after McEntarfer got the axe.
Administration officials argue the bureau has become unreliable.
"You want to be able to have somewhat reliable numbers,' Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CBS News earlier this month. 'There are always revisions, but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways.'
Former officials said revisions to the bureau's data, which triggered furor from the administration, are in fact a regular part of the process, and that the commissioner has little direct role within the agency's information gathering.
'The commissioner doesn't do anything to collect the numbers,' William Beach, nominated to serve the position during the first Trump administration, recently told CNN. 'The commissioner doesn't see the numbers until Wednesday before they're published.'
The questions surrounding the BLS are part of larger concerns over the Trump economy, including continued uncertainty over the impact of his often-revised tariff plan, which most recently included another 90-day pause for tariff hikes on China.
A Times of London/YouGov poll from earlier this month found that 48 percent of Americans graded Trump's job performance over the first six months of his administration as poor, compared to 21 percent who rated it excellent, 16 percent who rated it good and 11 percent who rated it as fair.
Four in 10 Americans said that Trump's tariffs will make the country poorer and stifle economic growth.