Latest news with #Antoni
The Hill
a day ago
- Business
- The Hill
Trump stuns Wall Street, Washington with controversial BLS nominee
President Trump's pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is breaking the mold of his predecessors and causing alarm among economists of all stripes Commissioners of the BLS are usually academics or career civil servants with decades of experience in statistics and economics. But EJ Antoni, who Trump nominated to lead the agency after firing former BLS chief Erika McEntarfer on the heels of a disappointing jobs report earlier this month, has more bona fides as a pundit and conservative advocate than he does as a statistician. The choice of Antoni to lead a statistical division whose data is scrutinized by businesses and governments all over the world is getting major backlash from the economics profession and sparking concerns about the politicization of bedrock-level economic data. 'E.J. Antoni is completely unqualified to be BLS Commissioner,' Harvard University economist Jason Furman, who worked for the Obama administration, wrote on social media. 'He is an extreme partisan and does not have any relevant experience.' Stan Veuger, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, echoed Furman's words. 'He's utterly unqualified and as partisan as it gets,' he told the Washington Post. Who is EJ Antoni? Antoni has been the chief economist of the Heritage Foundation's center on the federal budget for the past four months. The Heritage Foundation is a right-wing think tank that produced the wide-ranging Project 2025 policy agenda. Project 2025 took aim at the 'permanent political class' in Washington, and many of its budget-cutting recommendations have been carried out by the Trump administration. He held two research fellowships at Heritage prior to his current position and two other fellowships at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group led by billionaire Steve Forbes. Antoni submitted his doctoral dissertation in 2020, in which he defends positions associated with 'supply-side economics,' a conservative policy doctrine that became popular in the 1980s. Besides stints as an adjunct at a community college and as an instructor at his alma mater of Northern Illinois University, he's held no other academic posts. By comparison, McEntarfer worked for 20 years as an economist with the Census Bureau. Her predecessor William Beach was the chief economist for the Senate Budget Committee, and his predecessor Erica Groshen spent 20 years as an economist at the New York Federal Reserve and referees for about a dozen academic journals. Antoni is a frequent guest on a number of conservative media outlets. While BLS makes it a point to produce — rather than interpret — economic data, Antoni has been hitting talking points on recent BLS releases in media appearances, a stark contrast with the agency's typical cut-and-dry communications. Discussing the dismal July jobs report, he emphasized job growth among native-born Americans on former Trump adviser Steven Bannon's internet podcast. 'There was some good news in the report, too, that we should definitely highlight,' he said. 'All of the net job growth over the last 12 months has gone to native-born Americans.' The Heritage Foundation did not respond to a request for an interview with Antoni. Backlash from economists Economists aren't mincing their words about Antoni's credentials. One economist at the University of Wisconsin refuted one of Antoni's recent papers, showing it contained basic statistical mistakes and finding that it wasn't possible to replicate its results — an academic kiss of death. Alan Cole, an economist with the conservative Tax Foundation think tank, described the errors in the paper as 'stunning.' 'Stunning errors in a tweet are bad, but worse to do it in long form, where there's more time and effort involved,' he wrote on social media. Conservative economists have also been blasting the firing of McEntarfer after the July jobs report showed that a meager 106,000 jobs have been added to the economy since May. Trump accused the agency — without any evidence — of producing 'rigged' data, which many economists have said is poppycock. 'The totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer … sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau,' William Beach, a Trump appointee who preceded McEntarfer as head of the BLS, wrote online. Warnings to senators Antoni is expected to be easily confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate after he appears before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which will also need to approve his nomination. Antoni's critics are waging a long-shot effort to turn GOP members of the committee against the nominee ahead of his likely confirmation. Friends of the BLS, a group that advocates for the agency and that's chaired by Beach and his predecessor Erica Groshen, called out Antoni in a statement Wednesday, describing the debate about his nomination as 'contentious.' 'BLS now … faces the additional challenge of a contentious debate over the nominee for the next Commissioner, Dr. EJ Antoni,' they said. Groshen told The Hill they hope the nomination process will be 'very thorough.' 'The responsibility of the Senate HELP committee … is particularly important at this time,' she added. The Hill reached out to all Republican members of the committee about Antoni's qualifications, most of whom didn't respond. A representative for Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she wouldn't be commenting on the nomination prior to the hearing. What would politicized labor data look like? Antoni has already floated some massive changes to BLS data releases, including canceling regular monthly reports in favor of quarterly releases — a change that would alter the entire cadence of economic data output and affect nearly every private and public sector model of the U.S. economy. He told Fox News before his nomination that 'the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly jobs reports, but keep publishing more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data,' since BLS data is often subject to revision. Former BLS chiefs told The Hill they're keeping an eye on a regulatory standard known as OMB Directive No. 3, which governs the rules of BLS releases, for any sign that agency data could become politicized. 'Violations of that would be very unusual, and therefore indicative of something unusual underneath it,' Groshen said. Antoni has delivered some conflicting remarks on BLS data revisions, attributing them to 'incompetent' leadership under McEntarfer during his appearance on Bannon's podcast and then noting later that the problems pre-dated her time as agency commissioner. 'I think that's part of the reason why we continue to have all of these different data problems,' he said before adding that 'this is not a problem unique to the Trump administration.' Real problems with BLS data In fact, the downward revisions in the July jobs report that prompted Trump's firing of McEntarfer were due to the late reporting of educational employment figures by state and local governments, along with the more pronounced seasonal effects in that sector since teachers don't work in the summer. That's fairly typical for the agency, current and former employees of the BLS told The Hill. Political narratives aside, the BLS has seen a substantial drop in survey response rates in the aftermath of the pandemic, a decline that has made the data less reliable, but that has affected statistical agencies in a number of countries beyond the U.S. 'This is not a failure of the BLS … This is a phenomenon that is worldwide,' Erica Groshen told The Hill. 'This is a slow-moving train wreck,' she added, exhorting CEOs across the economy to make a priority of the surveys. 'There is no silver bullet. Believe me – people have been looking for it for a long time.' Economists have been lamenting the survey response rates for years. 'Like Orwellian newspeak, [the U.S. employment report] can often mean the reverse of what it says it means. The household and establishment surveys portray contrasting pictures of employment (and both have shocking response rates),' UBS economist Paul Donovan wrote earlier this month, having noted declines since 2023.
NBC News
4 days ago
- Politics
- NBC News
Trump Bureau of Labor Statistics nominee was a 'bystander' outside Capitol on Jan. 6, White House says
The Parler video, which was also archived by ProPublica, shows Antoni walking away from the crowd on the west side of the Capitol grounds. Tear gas was in the air, and conservative radio host Alex Jones can be heard speaking over a megaphone. At that time, police were struggling to hold off the mob from taking over the inauguration platform. The crowd had surrounded the building but not yet entered the Capitol. Other footage shows Antoni on the east side of the Capitol building, walking south, away from the building. 'These pictures show EJ Antoni, a bystander to the events of January 6th, observing and then leaving the Capitol area,' White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an e-mailed statement. 'EJ was in town for meetings, and it is wrong and defamatory to suggest EJ engaged in anything inappropriate or illegal.' The Justice Department's investigation into the Jan. 6 attack was the largest in its history, with prosecutors scouring video evidence to identify and charge participants. The department mostly focused on charging individuals who entered the Capitol building or engaged in aggravating behavior outside. On his first day in office Trump ended the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, pardoned all of the roughly 1,500 Capitol defendants and commuted the sentences of others. Trump fired former BLS head Erika McEntarfer earlier this month, suggesting without evidence that she had "rigged" jobs reports for political purposes. The president then said he would nominate Antoni, a frequent guest on Steve Bannon's "War Room," who has long criticized the BLS. Antoni said in an interview with Fox News on Aug. 4, before his nomination, that the agency should suspend issuing the monthly job report, instead publishing quarterly data until the reports are more "accurate." Antoni will need to be confirmed by the Senate to take over the BLS. While Republicans control the chamber, Jan. 6 has caused issues for Trump nominees in the past. Trump withdrew his nomination of Ed Martin to take over the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia after Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., indicated that Martin's past support for Jan. 6 participants would be a deal-breaker.
Atlantic
4 days ago
- Business
- Atlantic
The Damage to Economic Data May Already Be Done
If you have been closely following the ongoing Bureau of Labor Statistics story—in which Donald Trump fired then-Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after being displeased by the bureau's July jobs report and selected the Heritage Foundation economist E. J. Antoni to succeed her—you will have heard an unusual consensus about the airtight political independence of the agency and the people who work there. Among BLS employees, including former Commissioner William Beach, whom Trump appointed in his first term, a fierce loyalty to the data is bone deep. Antoni does not appear to share that spirit of independence, nor does he seem to have a great deal of talent for economics or statistics, according to economists from across the political spectrum. Even so, his power to avoid future reports that embarrass Trump appears to be limited. In an interview recorded on August 4, before his nomination, Antoni proposed eliminating the monthly release of employment data, but the administration has already insisted that that won't happen. BLS data may not be completely tamper-proof, but they're pretty close. The sharpest economic minds in this country, both inside and outside the bureau, pay meticulous attention to the deepest layers of the data, many strata below the headline-unemployment rate and change-in-payroll employment. Deceiving them all would be very hard to do. Unfortunately, that might not matter. Antoni doesn't have to manipulate any data to undermine the reliability of the government's economic statistics. That damage might already have been done. I was a career press official at the Department of Labor who prepared a series of labor secretaries for their TV appearances early on the first Friday morning of every month. The release of the jobs report—'Jobs Day'—is a marquee event in this little corner of the federal government, when the press and the financial world's attention is fixed on the plaza of the Frances Perkins Building, in Washington. I lasted only one Jobs Day into the tenure of Trump's labor secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, before taking DOGE's buyout deal. I decided to leave the government in large part out of fear of precisely the kind of demands for oaths of political loyalty that were being threatened then and are now being implicitly exacted on every career civil servant at the BLS. Brian Klaas: Will Trump get his Potemkin statistics? Most labor secretaries, understanding the power of jobs data to create or destroy value in the financial markets, have taken a sober and restrained approach to these press appearances. Then there's Chavez-DeRemer. One of her prime talking points has been that 'native-born workers have accounted for all job gains since Inauguration Day.' Every single one. Not a single Russian surgeon or Canadian blackjack dealer got a job after January 20 of this year. In fact, the BLS makes no such assertion. The claim is absurd on its face—the kind of political catnip that a Cabinet secretary in the Trump administration is expected to put forward without shame, as a kind of homage to the boss. The existence of an independent BLS commissioner is predicated on the idea that someone needs to talk about the labor market who is never tempted to say such things. It's a public service, primarily for investors. Might a member of the Cabinet say something iffy as a result of her political loyalties? That's not ideal, but here's someone else you can listen to who doesn't have that problem. Until now, this arrangement allowed the president's representative to attempt to convince the public of the effectiveness of his priorities while reinforcing the objective, nonpartisan genesis of the underlying data. If the BLS commissioner is now every bit the political animal that the labor secretary is, then what is the purpose of the BLS commissioner? I am not a statistician; perhaps Antoni can mandate methodological deviations that bias the numbers in Trump's preferred direction. But I don't think he needs to. Confidence in the bureau is already badly weakened. This is about more than just our trust as consumers of the jobs report, because we are also its producers. To create its reports, the BLS needs businesses and citizens to take the time to respond to surveys about changes to their payroll and about who is going to work or looking for a job in their household. Even before Trump won the election last November, the trend in survey responsiveness was declining, posing an existential threat to the robustness of the data. The appointment of a transparent partisan to the head of the BLS is unlikely to improve matters. Why should we take the time to report our economic circumstances to the government if we believe the government isn't interested in the truth? If fewer Americans think that contributing to the creation of these reports is a valuable use of their time, the civil servants at the BLS will struggle to produce reliable numbers, regardless of what policies Antoni puts into place. The damage to our understanding of the economy would be far more consequential than a month of bad jobs numbers.
Newsweek
5 days ago
- Business
- Newsweek
Trump's BLS Pick Fuels Fears of Rigged CPI, Social Security COLA Cuts
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. President Donald Trump's nomination of E.J. Antoni, a Heritage Foundation economist, to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has triggered concerns over the potential politicization of key economic data—particularly the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is used to calculate Social Security cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) for seniors. "Seniors should know that the COLA on their Social Security benefits is tied to the CPI," former Treasury official Bruce Bartlett posted on X this week. "If the CPI is artificially reduced, as Trump wants, your benefits will be reduced." Antoni has repeatedly described Social Security as unsustainable and has advocated for its eventual phase-out. In a 2024 radio interview, he called the 90-year-old program a "Ponzi scheme," arguing that current beneficiaries should continue receiving benefits, but future retirees should not rely on it. "Eventually you need to sunset the program," Antoni said last December. He argued that while current beneficiaries would remain protected, younger Americans should transition to private accounts. "The people who are going to retire 10, 20, even 30, or certainly 40 years from now—I'm sorry, but the program is not going to be viable at that time". Donald Trump and economist E.J. Antoni in the Oval Office after Antoni's nomination to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Donald Trump and economist E.J. Antoni in the Oval Office after Antoni's nomination to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The White House Even Small Data Tweaks Could Mean Billions in Cuts In an interview with Fox News Digital earlier this week, Antoni said that, if confirmed, the BLS should consider pausing the monthly jobs report because of flaws in current data collection. His proposal, along with his views on Social Security, has raised concerns about the politicization of the bureau's key statistics particularly after the president fired the previous BLS chief after a soft jobs report earlier this month. Economists consulted by Newsweek warn that underreporting inflation data—even marginally—could quietly erode retirees' purchasing power over time. "If inflation is understated, then beneficiaries will have less ability to afford the goods and services they need," said Todd Belt, professor of political management at George Washington University. Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, quantified the long-term impact. "If you reduced the measured rate of inflation by 0.2–0.3 percentage points annually, then someone would be getting about 2.5 percent less in benefits after 10 years, 5 percent after 20 years and 7.5 percent after 30 years," he said. This concern extends beyond benefits. Baker noted that while a move to a lower-measuring index like the alternative known as "chained CPI" would technically require an act of Congress, "it seems the law doesn't really matter anymore." Cartons of eggs are seen for sale in a Kroger grocery store on August 15, 2022 in Houston, Texas. Egg prices steadily climb in the U.S. as inflation continues impacting grocery stores nationwide. Cartons of eggs are seen for sale in a Kroger grocery store on August 15, 2022 in Houston, Texas. Egg prices steadily climb in the U.S. as inflation continues impacting grocery stores nationwide. Brandon Bell/Getty Brian Albrecht, chief economist at the International Center for Law and Economics, added that even small distortions could be difficult to undo. "If inflation were truly 10 percent in a given year but reported as 0 percent, your check the following year would not rise at all," he said. "Even small manipulations of the data can have long-term effects that are very difficult to correct." But manipulating inflation data would not be an easy task. Albrecht pushed back on assumptions that CPI data can be easily gamed. "People dig into those numbers item by item. If you claimed everything in the basket went up 2 percent but reported CPI as 1 percent, it wouldn't add up. That scrutiny makes manipulation harder to hide." "It's just very hard to do," added Andrew Biggs, a former principal deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration (SSA), about the prospect of manipulating inflation statistics. While the BLS could, in theory, change the methodology or sampling of the CPI-W, a subset of CPI specific to urban areas, Biggs emphasized that "outright rigging is technically demanding, especially for a political appointee working with career employees." Erica Groshen, who served as BLS commissioner under President Obama, added that such changes would require public transparency. "According to OMB Statistical Policy Directive 3, any such major changes need to be announced in advance in the Federal Register," she said. Still, the stakes are high. Groshen noted that even a 0.01 percentage point understatement of the inflation rate would reduce payments to all Social Security beneficiaries—seniors and disabled—by about $1 billion annually. Whether such changes amount to a "stealth benefit cut," she said, "depends on how it was communicated." Trust in CPI Could Erode Public and Market Confidence The CPI-W, a legacy index the measures inflation for "urban wage owners" dating back to 1972, is used only by the Social Security Administration; other agencies, including the Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve, rely on the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, which tends to show lower inflation. "The Social Security Commissioner is required to select a measure of inflation, but not necessarily the CPI-W," Biggs, the former principal deputy commissioner at the SSA, said. A screen shows stock prices on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, in New York. A screen shows stock prices on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, in New York. Yuki Iwamura/AP That distinction underscores the political and policy pressure surrounding Antoni's nomination. Critics argue that a shift in the CPI-W's methodology—if perceived as biased—could spark a crisis of credibility. "Reports like the jobs report and CPI aren't just for PR purposes—Wall Street and many markets depend on them," said Anna Tavis, academic director of the Human Capital Management Department at NYU's School of Professional Studies. She also warned that undermining the credibility of official data could drive companies toward costly private analytics. "Those alternatives won't be free." The private sector isn't the only area that could be rattled. Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase, told Reuters that suspicions about manipulated CPI figures could distort the $2.1 trillion Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) market, which exists to protect investors from inflation. "There's real money on the line here," he said. The concerns are not just technical—they're about trust. "You have an economy operating in a different reality than the reported numbers," said Belt, the GWU professor. "That creates uncertainty, which is the enemy of good business behavior."
Economic Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Economic Times
Ikea eyes India as key sourcing hub amid global trade shifts
Global trade wars have pushed companies to speed up the diversification of their supply chains and India will be key to Ikea's sourcing strategy where it is expanding beyond textiles to build supply capabilities in plastic, metals, and furniture, said Patrik Antoni, CEO at the Swedish retailer's India unit, who took charge earlier this month. ADVERTISEMENT While exporting products (largely textiles) from India to the US would mean higher retail prices for American consumers, in India, the expansion of local sourcing would allow Ikea to shore up its overall exports from the market as well as reduce prices for local consumers. Ikea did not comment on whether it would shift sourcing for the US from India to other markets - Europe is the company's biggest supply region, followed by Asia, and most of what Ikea sells in the US is manufactured in other countries. "Ikea has been exporting from India for close to five more regionalisation of supplies, India should probably have an opportunity. When Ikea talks about always with an ambition to export," Antoni told TOI in an interview. India is staring at a 50% tariff on US exports, putting it at a huge disadvantage over other Asian peers such as Bangladesh and Vietnam, which have been tariffed at a lower rate. Country retail manager and chief sustainability officer for Ikea India, Susanne Pulverer, said the announcement of the additional 25% penalty happened just last week, and she is hoping trade will not be disrupted much by tariff and non-tariff barriers going Ikea looks to tap into a growing middle class in India, which, helped by higher disposable incomes, is becoming more discerning, the company is expanding its retail footprint in the country with the launch of its first store in New Delhi on Wednesday. For Antoni, the priority will be to step up India expansion and make pricing more affordable for consumers by widening local sourcing. "I see only opportunities for us in India, it's our time," Antoni said, hinting at more store launches in the country in the coming months. Ikea India has set a target of taking its local sourcing to 50% by 2030, which it said is on track. Currently, Ikea's brick-and-mortar stores in the region are only limited to Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and now New Delhi. It reaches more markets through its online stores. (With TOI inputs) (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)
