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In normal times, the first Friday of the month brings a routine tranche of government data known as the monthly jobs report. The markets react, the politicians preen, and most Americans go about their day trying to just get to the weekend around the corner.
But these are not normal times, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics is no longer in the safe zone of non-partisanship thanks to President Donald Trump’s decision to can its chief because he didn’t like the math. Last Friday, Trump summarily fired Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer after her team of stats fiends revised downward the job numbers for May and June. True to form, Trump decided the revisions were an effort to embarrass him and stoked conspiracy theories that it was a plot to rig spreadsheets. It was the equivalent of firing a National Weather Service meteorologist because he spotted a hurricane and said something about it.
This is a shocking development that is about so much more than a headcount of Americans showing up to work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, an independent shop inside the Department of Labor and run by a Senate-confirmed geek, is a warehouse of quants whose products shape everything from interest rates, investments payouts, contracts, and businesses’ choices. The BLS is a 2,000-strong army of nerds who have a huge—but quiet—sway over the global economy based in large part on the confidence that they don’t cook the books.
On Sept. 5, the federal government will release its first jobs report since Trump fired McEntarfer. The reaction to those numbers is likely to be colored by the recent upheaval. If, say, the next BLS report shows hiring surged in August, will investors in the U.S. and around the globe even believe it? In chasing an immediate rush, Trump may have just denied himself a victory lap in yet another self-own.
Thousands of invisible, far-reaching decisions flow from the stream of reports the BLS compiles. When faith in the government product is shaken, things go off-the-rails in short order; just look at how anti-science sentiments prolonged the Covid 19 pandemic, and helped set in motion a broader drop in vaccine rates.
Trump’s predecessors largely prioritized stability over showmanship, understanding the importance of projecting a steady hand from Washington since World War II reset the global order. Many of Trump’s capricious choices—from his trade- and tariff-war tantrums to his repeatedly threatening to fire the Federal Reserve chairman—are undermining that perception. Many global leaders now see U.S. influence as shrinking, as so many of the country’s decisions seem to have no obvious strategic aim other than serving Trump’s lust for chaos and affirmation.
Around Washington, the daily whiplash has become routine. But the BLS shift is something altogether new. Even though Presidents might not always like the report that crosses their desk each month, they could have confidence that they were getting an as-accurate-as-possible snapshot of the economy. The same can be said for Wall Street, which counts on the ledger to be an apolitical barometer.
“Good data helps not just the Fed, it helps the government, but it also helps the private sector,” said Fed Chair Jay Powell two days before McEntarfer was sacked. “The United States has been a leader in that for 100 years.”
With his abrupt firing last week, Trump threatens that standard. As Trump considers naming a new BLS chief as soon as this week, it’s presumed he is looking for someone who shares his belief that only information that paints him as a success is acceptable. It’s a huge risk, one that historically has never worked out. The Greek debt crisis was the result of a Potemkin set of books, Argentina’s default on international loans was the byproduct of fictional inflation numbers.
Going further back in history shows the vital role government statisticians often play in keeping leaders accountable. In 1937, Josef Stalin had his census chief shot and killed when his numbers contradicted what the Soviet leader had advertised. The unflattering numbers were buried in the Soviet archives until 1989.
Trump has long fetishized such strong-man bravado, but he also craves the approval of Wall Street, which has a thing for accurate, stable, and honest data. If they’re looking to Trump-blessed statisticians for those numbers, they might soon find themselves suddenly skeptical of a report that, until Trump decided to politicize it, was an indispensable service that Washington produced for decades with little drama.
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