Latest news with #labor statistics
Yahoo
05-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Facing facts about Trump and the jobs numbers
In announcing the firing of the government's chief labor statistician last week, President Trump condemned the works of Erika McEntarfer as 'phony.' McEntarfer was just the 16th commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics since the position was created by Congress in 1884 to keep track of unemployment during an ongoing depression of a very Gilded Age variety. The job is to produce consistent, reliable data that Congress and other agencies can use for setting their own policies. What we have turned it into, however, is some kind of political rhabdomancer, an oracle on whose divinations the results of elections supposedly hang. But, like most good governance, it's actually really boring. McEntarfer was confirmed by the Senate by a richly bipartisan vote of 86-8 to a four-year term that began in 2024. But there's no doubt that Trump was within his powers to fire her. All of the other counters of beans at the bureau are civil servants, but not the bean-counter in chief, who has always been a political appointee — which McEntarfer became only after more than 20 years in various statistical gigs as a federal worker bee. Until Friday, she managed the bureau and her name was on the reports, but the numbers are churned out by a hive of statisticians and researchers working in the old Post Office building next to Washington's Union Station. The deputy commissioner, civil servant William Wiatrowski, will again serve as acting commissioner, as he has twice before during vacancies. We'll see what Trump thinks of Wiatrowski and the data nerds' August numbers when they come out on the first Friday of September. The president has vowed to pick an 'exceptional replacement' for McEntarfer, and that is probably true. There will be many exceptions concerning whomever Trump sends to the Senate for confirmation to the post. In the meantime, if the August numbers are as glum as the rest of this summers', Trump may start firing his way through acting commissioners until he finds one who sees the 'great Republican Success' the president claims McEntarfer was concealing. But he can burn that bridge when he comes to it. For now, let's think about why Trump fired McEntarfer and what he meant by 'phony.' 'Days before the election, [McEntarfer] came out with these beautiful numbers for Kamala, I guess Biden-Kamala, and she came out with these beautiful numbers trying to get somebody else elected,' Trump told reporters Friday. 'Then, right after the election, she had an [$800,000] or $900,000 massive reduction — said she made a mistake.' The fact is that the single poorest employment report of McEntarfer's tenure was the one she published three days before the 2024 election, in which the bureau reported Nov. 1 that the economy had created only 12,000 new jobs in October, a worrisome sign for former President Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris. There was indeed a revision to those numbers after the election: a substantial increase to 43,000, reflecting the bureau's conclusion that the fall hurricane season had distorted the overall jobs picture. It is true, though, that Trump did complain bitterly 10 weeks before the election about the long-term revisions to the bureau's 2023 numbers that concluded the economy had added more than 800,000 fewer jobs in the previous year than initially estimated under McEntarfer's predecessor. Insofar as jobs numbers — rather than actual jobs — affect the attitude of voters, McEntarfer's bureau had given Trump a gift. But Trump was more focused on the revision itself, not the report, writing, 'the Harris-Biden administration has been caught fraudulently manipulating Job Statistics.' If the Biden-Harris administration had been cooking the books, then why on earth would it announce such a thing during the height of the campaign, on Aug. 21, the third day of the Democratic National Convention? If Trump's goal was to knock the incumbent administration's economic policies, McEntarfer & Co. had just served up a very juicy pitch, but Trump largely ignored it in favor of the allegation of corruption. It is possible that Friday, Trump confused the August downward revision with the November report, and that he unknowingly conflated the two events to fit his preferred narrative. But whether it was a premedicated lie or self-deception isn't really the essential point. The episode shows us what Trump thinks about data in general. Whether it is election returns or economic reports, none of it can be trusted, unless it has been provided by 'his own people.' Thus we come to a fork in the road: Is it that Trump believes it is possible for data to be unhappy for him and accurate, but only if he chooses the people who collect the data, or, is it closer to his way of thinking that data are mostly phony and he just prefers to be the one in whose favor it is being rigged? If it is the former, that comes with its own problems. Once a leader has installed loyalists in charge of data gathering, those loyalists out of some combination of love, ambition and fear will be motivated to hide bad news. A government that loses the ability to tell itself the truth is doomed, with terrible consequences for its citizens. But what if it's the latter, and Trump doesn't put much stock in data as anything more than a tool for marketing, messaging and politics? This is the kind of thinking that might be behind asking an elections official to 'find' enough votes to overturn an election. If Trump assumes that the blue state election returns are phony, why shouldn't Republicans provide phony vote totals for his benefit? Whether it's the Georgia secretary of state, the chair of the Federal Reserve, his own vice president or the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, if Trump assumes that all findings are the work of political malfeasance, why shouldn't they be malfeasing in his favor? Unhappy findings, therefore, can't be matters of fact or sincere interpretation, they can only be, as Trump would say, 'nice' or 'not nice.' Writing in 1942 about his recollections of fighting in the Spanish Civil War years before, George Orwell framed out how first Spain and then all of Europe had been plunged into hellish madness over the course of less than a decade. What he concluded wasn't that old saw that 'truth is the first causality of war,' but rather that the death of truth is part of what leads us to war. 'I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway. I am willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased,' he wrote. 'but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written.' It's not that employment data aren't ever wrong, it's that in a functional republic, we believe that such data can be found through an imperfect, iterative process that is pointing at something real. If we abandon that idea, then all that's left is the party line. The would-be information czars of the COVID-era and the dis-disinformation apparatus that sprang up in response to the wilderness of online life, including that part of the wilderness planted by Trump himself, frequently devoted itself to fighting 'wrong' ideas and 'bad' opinions. It was often Orwellian in its own way, fact-checking subjective assessments. But the real fight for the future isn't about what people think, but rather what people believe can be known. We may already be living in a post-truth era, but God help us if we are beyond caring about facts. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
03-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's Former Jobs Data Chief Decries Firing of Successor
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump's firing of the chief labor statistician was criticized by her predecessor, who called it an unfounded move that will undermine confidence in a key data set on the US economy. We Should All Be Biking Along the Beach Seeking Relief From Heat and Smog, Cities Follow the Wind Chicago Curbs Hiring, Travel to Tackle $1 Billion Budget Hole NYC Mayor Adams Gives Bally's Bronx Casino Plan a Second Chance 'This is damaging,' William Beach, whom Trump picked in his first term to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday. Trump on Friday fired Erika McEntarfer hours after labor market data showed weak jobs growth based in part on steep downward revisions for May and June. The move by Trump, who claimed the latest monthly report was 'phony,' prompted an outcry from economists and lawmakers. 'I don't know that there's any grounds at all for this firing,' said Beach, whom McEntarfer replaced in January 2024. 'And it really hurts the statistical system. It undermines credibility in BLS.' Studies indicate that the agency's data is more accurate than 20 or 30 years ago, including any revisions of the initial data, Beach said. Even so, he said he'll trust future BLS data because people working for the agency are 'some of the most loyal Americans you can imagine,' making the bureau 'the finest statistical agency in the entire world.' Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, speaking Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation, urged the US government to improve its data collection to avoid revisions that engender distrust. 'We watch what consumers really do. We watch what businesses really do,' Moynihan said, while not addressing the politics of the firing. 'They can get this data, I think, other ways, and I think that's where the focus would be.' He noted the revision for May and June data, while not unusual, was one of the largest in seven years. 'That creates doubt around it,' he said. 'Let's spend some money. Let's bring the information together. Let's find where else in the government money is reported.' McEntarfer was confirmed by the Senate in a bipartisan 86-8 vote. Vice President JD Vance, then a senator, voted to approve her nomination. Kevin Hassett, Trump's chief economic adviser at the White House, alleged that the large jobs data revisions were poorly explained and were evidence enough for a 'fresh set of eyes' at BLS. He sought to contradict Beach's portrayal of the agency as politically neutral. 'The bottom line is that there were people involved in creating these numbers,' Hassett said on NBC's Meet the Press. Pressed on whether Trump would fire anyone offering data he disagreed with, Hassett, who heads the National Economic Council, disagreed. 'No, absolutely not,' he said. 'The president wants his own people there so that when we see the numbers, they're more transparent and more reliable.' (Updates with Moynihan comments beginning in sixth paragraph.) How Podcast-Obsessed Tech Investors Made a New Media Industry Everyone Loves to Hate Wind Power. Scotland Found a Way to Make It Pay Off Russia Builds a New Web Around Kremlin's Handpicked Super App Cage-Free Eggs Are Booming in the US, Despite Cost and Trump's Efforts What's Really Behind Those Rosy GDP Numbers? ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
The Guardian
02-08-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Trump news at a glance: ‘credibility' of US economics data at risk, say experts, as president fires labor official
After Donald Trump ordered the firing of a federal government official in charge of labor statistics, experts and opposition politicians have expressed alarm that the 'credibility' of US economic data was at risk. The US president claimed without evidence that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of labor statistics, had 'rigged' job numbers 'in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad', after data showed jobs growth stalled this summer, prompting accusations that the president was 'firing the messenger'. Bill Beach, a former Heritage Foundation economist who was picked by Trump in 2018 to oversee labor statistics, denounced what he called the 'totally groundless firing'. 'Politicizing economic statistics is a self-defeating act,' said Michael Madowitz, the principal economist at the Roosevelt Institute's Roosevelt Forward, who added that 'credibility is far easier to lose than rebuild, and the credibility of America's economic data is the foundation on which we've built the strongest economy in the world'. Senate Democrat Ron Wyden said 'this is the act of somebody who is soft, weak and afraid to own up to the reality of the damage his chaos is inflicting on our economy'. The move came as markets around the world were roiled by Trump's latest tariff announcement, which left more than 60 countries scrambling to secure trade deals. Here are the key US politics stories of the day: Donald Trump ordered the firing of the federal government official in charge of labor statistics, hours after data revealed jobs growth stalled this summer, prompting accusations that he was 'firing the messenger'. The US president claimed that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of labor statistics, had 'faked' employment figures in the run-up to last year's election in an effort to boost Kamala Harris's chances of victory. Trump later claimed: 'Today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.' He produced no evidence for these allegations and insisted that the US economy was, in fact, 'BOOMING' on his watch. Read the full story Donald Trump has said that he deployed nuclear-capable submarines to the 'appropriate regions' in response to a threatening tweet by Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev, suggesting that he would be ready to launch a nuclear strike as tensions rise over the war in Ukraine. In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump wrote that he had decided to reposition the nuclear submarines because of 'highly provocative statements' by Medvedev, noting he was now the deputy chair of Russia's security council. Medvedev had earlier said that Trump's threats to sanction Russia and a recent ultimatum were 'a threat and a step towards war'. Read the full story Donald Trump unleashed global chaos with sweeping new tariff rates, triggering a wave of market jitters and fears for jobs in some of the poorest countries, as rates were signed off ranging from 10% to 50%. There was a minor reprieve that opened the door to further negotiations, after the White House said the updated tariffs would take effect on 7 August, not on Friday, the deadline previously set by Trump. Read the full story Donald Trump called on top Federal Reserve officials to seize control from its chair, Jerome Powell, if he fails to cut interest rates, stepping up his extraordinary attacks on the central bank's independence. The US president called Powell 'a stubborn MORON' in a series of critical social media posts on Friday, days after the Fed held rates steady for the fifth consecutive time. Read the full story Americans are struggling financially, grappling with debt and the rising cost of living, and are blaming the Trump administration and corporate interests for worsening economic outlooks for working families, according to a new poll. Read the full story A new Trump administration report that attempts to justify a mass rollback of environmental regulations is chock-full of climate misinformation, experts say. Read the full story The US economy added 73,000 jobs in July, far lower than expected, amid ongoing concerns over Donald Trump's escalating trade war. Poverty and hunger will rise as a result of the Trump administration's unprecedented cuts to the US federal 'food stamps' program, according to experts. Low-income workers who rely on the aid are braced for dire consequences. California's governor, Gavin Newsom, may call a special election in November to begin the process of redrawing the state's congressional maps in response to Texas's plans to change its own maps to help Republicans keep their majority in the House of Representatives. Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's associate who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes, has been transferred from a federal prison in Florida to a lower-security facility in Texas, the US Bureau of Prisons said on Friday. Kamala Harris has said she currently has no desire to re-enter 'the system' of American politics because it is 'broken'. Sixteen states are suing the Trump administration to defend transgender youth healthcare access, which has rapidly eroded across the US due to threats from the federal government. Catching up? Here's what happened 31 July 2025.
The Guardian
02-08-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Trump news at a glance: ‘credibility' of US economics data at risk, say experts, as president fires labor dept official
After Donald Trump ordered the firing of a federal government official in charge of labor statistics, experts and opposition politicians have expressed alarm that the 'credibility' of US economic data was at risk. The US president claimed without evidence that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of labor statistics, had 'rigged' job numbers 'in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad', after data showed jobs growth stalled this summer, prompting accusations that the president was 'firing the messenger'. Bill Beach, a former Heritage Foundation economist who was picked by Trump in 2018 to oversee labor statistics, denounced what he called the 'totally groundless firing'. 'Politicizing economic statistics is a self-defeating act,' said Michael Madowitz, the principal economist at the Roosevelt Institute's Roosevelt Forward, who added that 'credibility is far easier to lose than rebuild, and the credibility of America's economic data is the foundation on which we've built the strongest economy in the world'. Senate Democrat Ron Wyden said 'this is the act of somebody who is soft, weak and afraid to own up to the reality of the damage his chaos is inflicting on our economy'. The move came as markets around the world were roiled by Trump's latest tariff announcement, which left more than 60 countries scrambling to secure trade deals. Here are the key US politics stories of the day: Donald Trump ordered the firing of the federal government official in charge of labor statistics, hours after data revealed jobs growth stalled this summer, prompting accusations that he was 'firing the messenger'. The US president claimed that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of labor statistics, had 'faked' employment figures in the run-up to last year's election in an effort to boost Kamala Harris's chances of victory. Trump later claimed: 'Today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.' He produced no evidence for these allegations and insisted that the US economy was, in fact, 'BOOMING' on his watch. Read the full story Donald Trump has said that he deployed nuclear-capable submarines to the 'appropriate regions' in response to a threatening tweet by Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev, suggesting that he would be ready to launch a nuclear strike as tensions rise over the war in Ukraine. In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump wrote that he had decided to reposition the nuclear submarines because of 'highly provocative statements' by Medvedev, noting he was now the deputy chair of Russia's security council. Medvedev had earlier said that Trump's threats to sanction Russia and a recent ultimatum were 'a threat and a step towards war'. Read the full story Donald Trump unleashed global chaos with sweeping new tariff rates, triggering a wave of market jitters and fears for jobs in some of the poorest countries, as rates were signed off ranging from 10% to 50%. There was a minor reprieve that opened the door to further negotiations, after the White House said the updated tariffs would take effect on 7 August, not on Friday, the deadline previously set by Trump. Read the full story Donald Trump called on top Federal Reserve officials to seize control from its chair, Jerome Powell, if he fails to cut interest rates, stepping up his extraordinary attacks on the central bank's independence. The US president called Powell 'a stubborn MORON' in a series of critical social media posts on Friday, days after the Fed held rates steady for the fifth consecutive time. Read the full story Americans are struggling financially, grappling with debt and the rising cost of living, and are blaming the Trump administration and corporate interests for worsening economic outlooks for working families, according to a new poll. Read the full story A new Trump administration report that attempts to justify a mass rollback of environmental regulations is chock-full of climate misinformation, experts say. Read the full story The US economy added 73,000 jobs in July, far lower than expected, amid ongoing concerns over Donald Trump's escalating trade war. Poverty and hunger will rise as a result of the Trump administration's unprecedented cuts to the US federal 'food stamps' program, according to experts. Low-income workers who rely on the aid are braced for dire consequences. California's governor, Gavin Newsom, may call a special election in November to begin the process of redrawing the state's congressional maps in response to Texas's plans to change its own maps to help Republicans keep their majority in the House of Representatives. Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's associate who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes, has been transferred from a federal prison in Florida to a lower-security facility in Texas, the US Bureau of Prisons said on Friday. Kamala Harris has said she currently has no desire to re-enter 'the system' of American politics because it is 'broken'. Sixteen states are suing the Trump administration to defend transgender youth healthcare access, which has rapidly eroded across the US due to threats from the federal government. Catching up? Here's what happened 31 July 2025.
The Guardian
01-08-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Trump fires labor statistics chief hours after data showed jobs growth slowed
Donald Trump fired of the federal government official in charge of labor statistics, hours after data revealed jobs growth stalled this summer, prompting accusations that he is 'firing the messenger'. The US president claimed that Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of labor statistics, had 'faked' employment figures in the run-up to last year's election, in an effort to boost Kamala Harris's chances of victory. Trump later claimed: 'Today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad'. He produced no evidence for these allegations, and insisted that the US economy was, in fact, 'BOOMING' on his watch. But Friday's employment figures told a very different story, and raised questions about the state of the labor market since Trump's return to office. 'We need accurate Jobs Numbers,' he wrote on Truth Social. 'I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.' McEntarfer was contacted for comment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) confirmed in a brief statement that she had been dismissed. William Wiatrowski, the agency's deputy commissioner, will serve as acting commissioner. Trump's abrupt announcement came as administration officials scrambled to explain a lackluster employment report. Not only did jobs growth fail to meet expectations in July, but previous estimates for May and June were revised significantly lower. The president was promptly accused of trying to hide accurate statistics. 'Trump is firing the messenger because he doesn't seem to like jobs numbers that reflect how badly he's damaged the economy,' said Lily Roberts, managing director for inclusive growth at the Center for American Progress, a thinktank, said. 'Politicizing our country's collection of data on what's going on in the economy … will make it harder to create an economy that makes sure everyone has a good job,' added Roberts. 'Borrowing from the authoritarian playbook fuels more uncertainty that will cost Americans for years to come.' Paul Schroeder, executive director of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, described the president's allegation as 'very damaging and outrageous', adding: 'Not only does it undermine the integrity of federal economic statistics but it also politicizes data which need to remain independent and trustworthy. This action is a grave error by the administration and one that will have ramifications for years to come.' McEntarfer is a widely respected economist and veteran employee of the federal government. She previously worked at the US Census Bureau under George W Bush and at the US census bureau under Barack Obama, Trump and Joe Biden. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion In January 2024, before McEntarfer's confirmation for her current post by the US Senate, her nomination was backed by four former BLS commissioners. In a letter also signed by organizations including the American Statistics Association and a string of senior economists, they said there were 'many reasons' to confirm McEntarfer as commissioner of labor statistics, citing her 'wealth of research and statistical experience'. She was ultimately confirmed by a vote in the Senate, with 86 votes cast in favor and eight against. Gene Sperling, chair of the national economic council under Bill Clinton and Obama, and who worked as an official under Biden, said he expected Trump to 'destroy the credibility' of economic data when his administration suffered its first bad jobs report. 'Now: first bad job report, and he just fired BLS head over absurd claims of bias,' Sperling wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Trump's decision to fire McEntarfer was 'outrageous but not surprising', said Julie Su, former acting US labor secretary under Biden. 'He hates facts, so he blames truth-tellers.' The US 'needs and deserves trustworthy economic data', added Su. 'This is a pathetic attempt by the president to gaslight everyone about the consequences of his disastrous economic policies.'
