Don’t worry- that won’t happen again. Trump fires the person responsible for revising job numbers.
From Slate:
President Trump
said in a social media post Friday afternoon that he directed members of his administration to fire
Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after the BLS on Friday published a July jobs report that contained what it called "larger than normal" revisions to data from May and June.
On Friday, Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics—the apolitical agency that releases those monthly jobs reports. Housed within the Department of Labor, the bureau is responsible for collecting economic data on everything from wages to the rate of inflation.
On Friday morning, the BLS released preliminary data suggesting the economy added only 73,000 jobs last month, way lower than the economists’ predicted number of 115,000. The report also updated its payroll tallies for May and June,
revising down their combined growth estimate by a
quarter-million jobs. In other words: Previous reports of the Trump economy’s sturdy shape were mistaken, and this summer has seen a
major slowdown in hiring.
To be clear, it is not at all uncommon for the BLS to revisit its previous job counts. As
the bureau itself has often clarified, these recalculations reflect new information that wasn’t available when the data were first compiled. It’s why the monthly jobs number is always labeled “preliminary.”
That’s not how the president would prefer to see it. Shortly after 2 p.m., Trump posted on Truth Social that “I was just informed that our Country’s ‘Jobs Numbers’ are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics,” going on to parrot
an unfounded (but not uncommon) right-wing conspiracy theory that Commissioner McEntarfer had also cooked some of last year’s jobs numbers, for the reputational benefit of then-President Joe Biden and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. “I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY.” NBC News
soon confirmed that the firing had in fact been carried out. As BLS Deputy Commissioner and career government statistician Bill Wiatrowski stepped in to temporarily fill in the role, Trump continued to rave about McEntarfer online,
writing on Truth Social: “In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.” That opinion was all but endorsed by Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who expressed “
concerns about decisions being made by” McEntarfer.
More:
Yes, Trump firing the BLS commissioner is bad. Really bad.
slate.com
