Plenty DK posts have already covered the jobs report today, so I won’t repeat. You can read them here, here, and here.
A complaint that has been often raised at least as far back as the Obama administration is that the books are being cooked.
Earlier this week, former economic adviser to President Obama Jared Bernstein was asked by Chris Hayes on MSNBC’s “All in” news show if he thought the books were being cooked given the results of the previous few months.
Bernstein was almost fierce in his response, noting that the BLS career experts would never bend to presenting inaccurate numbers just because Donald Trump demands it. He expressed complete confidence in their analyses. UPDATE NOTE: Bernstein was on again tonight and was deeply aggrieved at the news of the firing. And worried that the books now actually WILL be cooked in such a way that Trump can always trumpet to his base.
However, on Truth Social today, we got this from you-know-who:
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, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala’s chances of Victory. This is the same Bureau of Labor Statistics that overstated the Jobs Growth in March 2024 by approximately 818,000 and, then again, right before the 2024 Presidential Election, in August and September, by 112,000. These were Records — No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes. McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months. Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative. The Economy is BOOMING under “TRUMP” despite a Fed that also plays games, this time with Interest Rates, where they lowered them twice, and substantially, just before the Presidential Election, I assume in the hopes of getting “Kamala” elected – How did that work out? Jerome “Too Late” Powell should also be put “out to pasture.” Thank you for your attention to this matter!
When you don’t like the message, chop off the head of the messenger.
McEntarfer has been in the BLS post since January 2024, when she was appointed by President Joe Biden for a four-year term. She has a doctorate in economics from Virginia Tech.
Trump’s failure to understand how the jobs numbers are arrived at, and his outright lies about fakery at the bureau, are just more examples of how the media’s normalization of so much of his abnormality has screwed up the country.
And we certainly won’t be able to trust the numbers going forward.
x
A month ago, Scott Bessent told a CNN anchor with a straight face: "The President is probably the most economically sophisticated president we've had in probably 100 years, maybe ever."
Making Bessent the dumbest Secretary of the Treasury we've had, maybe ever.
— MeteorBlades (@meteorblades.bsky.social) 2025-08-01T15:49:49.922Z
CNN:
“It’s outrageous for anyone in government to question the integrity of the BLS,” said Jason Furman, a Harvard professor and former Obama economic adviser. “Accurate statistics are essential to the economy.”
Furman doubted that replacing McEntarfer would compromise the BLS, but he said even the possibility or appearance of that notion “would be bad.”
“Countries that have tried to fake those statistics have often ended up with economic crisis as a result,” Furman said.
Heidi Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute released this statement:
Today, Trump directed his team to fire the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) because he didn’t like the jobs numbers they released. This is a move straight out of an autocratic playbook.
BLS is one of the most respected statistical agencies in the world, known for its methodological rigor, independence, and transparency. The president’s belief that the BLS commissioner personally “produced” the jobs numbers is preposterous and shows a complete misunderstanding of how government statistical agencies operate. These data are the product of careful work by hundreds of expert economists, statisticians, and civil servants following transparent, well-established methodologies.
Dr. Erika McEntarfer is a highly respected labor economist with deep expertise in labor market data. Like all BLS commissioners, she is bound by strict norms of nonpartisanship and statistical integrity. To fire her over an official data release—simply because the numbers do not serve a particular political narrative—is a deeply dangerous attack on the foundations of a functioning democracy.
And it’s not just undemocratic—it’s economically dangerous. The economy runs on reliable data. Businesses use these numbers to decide whether to hire or expand. The Federal Reserve uses them to set interest rates. State and local governments use them to plan budgets. If policymakers and the public can’t trust the data—or suspect the data are being manipulated—confidence collapses and reasonable economic decision-making becomes impossible. It’s like trying to drive a car blindfolded. This manufactured chaos will reduce business investment and consumer spending, making a recession—and soaring unemployment—far more likely in coming months.
The firing of the BLS commissioner follows a week of reporting that almost 20% of price inflation data was unable to be collected for the month of July, stemming from severe resource constraints. Between illegal firings, starving data agencies of needed resources, and now political intimidation, the U.S. looks set to run into the next economic downturn flying blind. The cost of this incompetence will be felt by working people first.
Xaver Clarke at The Revolving Door Project has provided a rundown on how far Trump has already gone in his efforts to pervert data. See Trump’s War on Public Data.
