New Director Nominee Calls for Suspension of Monthly Employment Report
EJ Antoni argues BLS should halt monthly releases until data collection methods are corrected
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on August 12 (local time) that the Donald Trump administration is reviewing changes to the way employment data is collected in the United States.
According to the WSJ, White House aides recently held closed-door meetings with officials from the Department of Labor over the past few days to discuss new methods for collecting employment data and to review technologies that could make the process more efficient. White House officials stated that one of their main goals is to improve the response rate to Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys.
President Trump has publicly complained that the data in employment reports is designed to harm him politically. In his second term, he has labeled employment statistics that contradict his claims of economic growth as "manipulated statistics."
On August 1, after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released figures showing that the U.S. employment situation had significantly worsened over the past three months, President Trump dismissed Erica Groshen, the bureau chief appointed by the previous administration. He continued to claim that the employment statistics had been manipulated to favor the Democratic Party ahead of the election and asserted that the latest figures were also manipulated. The following day, he nominated EJ Antoni, chief economist at the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, as the new bureau chief.
After the dismissal of the statistics chief, the market was flooded with criticism that the independence and credibility of the statistics had been undermined, and that the foundation of economic policy had been shaken. The WSJ pointed out that if the data collection methods are changed and the content of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly employment report-typically released on the first Friday morning of each month-also changes, President Trump could face accusations of manipulating the figures for political purposes.
During an interview with Fox News this week, Antoni, the nominee, argued that the Bureau of Labor Statistics should suspend the release of the monthly employment report until the data collection methods are corrected. He stated, "The Bureau of Labor Statistics should halt the publication of the monthly employment report and continue to release only quarterly data," adding, "Key decision-makers, from Wall Street to Washington, D.C., rely on these figures. If trust in the data is undermined, the impact will be widespread."
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