Trump’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Chief Nominee Calls for Pause to Monthly Jobs Reports Until Fixed

by Natalia Mittelstadt

President Trump’s recent nominee to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics has called for a pause in the agency’s monthly jobs reports until data issues are fixed.

Economist E.J. Antoni was nominated last week by Trump to replace agency Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, whom the president fired after BLS published a weak July jobs report that Trump thinks was flawed.

Antoni, the chief economist for the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, thinks there are recurring flaws in the agency’s methodology that need to be fixed before the monthly reports can continue.

He pointed to a declining response rate that contributes to inaccuracies, which is now below 50%, and said, “No one in a position of power fixed the problems in the data.”

“The problems in the BLS data have been evident for three years now, and they still haven’t been fixed,” Antoni said.

Antoni, who had called for McEntarfer’s firing, told Fox News on Aug. 4, the day before he was nominated, that the monthly jobs reports should be temporarily suspended.

“How on earth are businesses supposed to plan – or how is the Fed supposed to conduct monetary policy – when they don’t know how many jobs are being added or lost in our economy? It’s a serious problem that needs to be fixed immediately,” he said.

“Until it is corrected, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data.”

“Major decision-makers from Wall Street to D.C. rely on these numbers, and a lack of confidence in the data has far-reaching consequences.”

Trump believes the agency’s July report significantly understated job growth. The report also included a revised report on the country’s May and June jobs reports, saying they overstated growth by 258,000 jobs.

“In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Aug. 1.

Antoni also said: “The fact that you consistently have large downward revisions means that there are other things wrong with your models and methodologies. Statistical assumptions that may have worked fine before COVID no longer work in today’s economy and therefore need to be revised.

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Natalia Mittelstadt is a reporter for Just the News.
Photo “Ej Antoni” by Heritage Foundation.

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