Trump’s pick for Bureau of Labor Statistics should update data collection methods, not play politics 

CEI labor and economy experts say President Trump’s nominee to head the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics should improve data collection for jobs and unemployment reports – not halt or politically fix the data we use to evaluate how our economy is performing. 

Sean Higgins, Research Fellow: 

President Trump’s pick to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, E.J. Antoni, has an opportunity to modernize and re-think the agency’s methods for determining jobs numbers, and he should pursue it. There is no reason to believe that the BLS’s numbers have been politicized as the president has claimed, but the increasingly sharp revisions of jobs numbers in recent years indicate that the BLS’s traditional survey methods have become outdated as the national economy has changed. 

The BLS has acknowledged that the response rate to its job surveys has fallen off sharply. Meanwhile, technological innovations have created new categories of jobs like rideshare drivers and social media influencers, sectors where it is unclear how, or even if, the BLS data accounts for them. The business community needs reliable information from the bureau to plan for the future. Antoni should commit to seeking improved methods to track changes in the economy and present that data truthfully, regardless of its political impact. 

Ryan Young, Senior Economist: 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is the rare government agency that deserves its apolitical reputation. This may be about to change. 

BLS’s methods need updating, and DOGE-related staffing cuts have forced it to increasingly rely on statistical techniques like imputation. For example, July’s CPI report relies 35 percent on imputation, compared to just 10 percent when President Trump took office in January. 

While staffing shortages can affect BLS data’s accuracy, it does not make the data biased. BLS errors do not systematically point in one political direction or the other. 

Trump’s decision to fire previous BLS administrator Erika McEntarfer after a lackluster jobs report smacks of politics. Trump’s choice to replace her, EJ Antoni of the Trump-aligned Heritage Foundation, has written about wanting to stop issuing monthly employment reports, citing accuracy concerns. Pausing data releases could cast the president’s trade and industrial policy agenda in a bad light, as people would suspect bad motives, regardless of the real numbers. 

Trump risks following in the footsteps of countries like China, which stopped public reporting on youth unemployment after it exceeded 21 percent in 2023. It resumed publishing it the next year, reporting a lower number that may or may not be accurate. Other countries such as Turkey, Peronist-era Argentina, and other countries with economic problems have also fired statistical agency heads rather than pursue better policies. 

Accurate, trustworthy data is essential for both policymakers and businesses to make sound decisions. BLS should not only have the resources it needs to update its methodology and collect thorough data, it must also be above politics, both in perception and reality.