WASHINGTON (Reuters) – On Sunday, top economic officials in the White House supported President Donald Trump’s dismissal of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, countering claims that the president’s move could erode trust in official U.S. economic figures.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer stated to CBS that President Trump held “real concerns” about the data, while National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett commented that the president “is right to call for new leadership.”
Speaking on Fox News, Hassett specified that the principal issue was the BLS report from Friday, which showed net downward adjustments indicating that 258,000 fewer jobs were generated in May and June than initially estimated.
President Trump had claimed that BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer was fabricating the jobs data, although he offered no proof of such manipulation. The BLS is the agency responsible for compiling the closely followed employment report as well as data on consumer and producer prices.
The BLS did not provide a specific reason for the adjusted data but explained that “monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors.”
Following her abrupt termination on Friday, McEntarfer posted on the social media platform Bluesky, stating that serving as BLS commissioner was “the honor of her life” and praising the civil servants who work at the agency.
McEntarfer’s termination has heightened existing worries about the quality of economic data released by the federal government. The move also came just after a wave of new U.S. tariffs on many trading partners, which caused global stock markets to slide as Trump moves forward with his plans to restructure the world economy.
“I think what we need is a fresh set of eyes at the BLS, somebody who can clean this thing up,” Hassett remarked on “Fox News Sunday.”
During an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Greer admitted that revisions to job numbers are a regular occurrence, “but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways.”
Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America, commented that significant adjustments to economic data can weaken public trust and that government officials should find ways to enhance the quality of the data.
“They can get this data, I think, other ways and I think that’s where the focus ought to be: how do we get the data to be more resilient and more predictable and more understandable?” he said on CBS. “Because what bounces around is restatements … that creates doubt about it.”
