Trust the process, trust the data

Trump fired a Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner when he didn't like the jobs numbers. But everyone depends on reliable employment reports.

Trusted data sits at the heart of the U.S. economy, and it is essential that federal data releases are transparent and consistent. Each Thursday, the Department of Labor releases data showing the number of Americans who have applied for unemployment benefits that week; about four weeks after a quarter concludes, we receive the first of three estimates showing how much the U.S. economy produced and how much income was earned; on the first Friday of the month, we learn how many people are employed nationwide and how many report being out of work.

President Donald Trump firing Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer this month is an assault on these standard processes. It threatens the quality and trustworthiness of this data.

Trump was frustrated with the BLS because July’s data showed the White House a bleak labor market report that revised May and June figures downward by 258,000 jobs. This is news the Trump administration doesn’t want to know—and, more important, news they don’t want you to know. Trump might believe firing the commissioner will halt such negative data reporting.

Each month, employers tell the government how many people they have on payroll. Sometimes employers file their forms late. Maybe they are just starting their business and just learning how to file their forms; or maybe they are closing shop and need a bit of extra time to do their final accounting; or maybe their HR manager had the flu and the submission is late. Whatever the reason, the BLS fills the gap by estimating how many people are likely to be on payrolls given the data it has then updates the report as the full data comes in. The payroll data are revised downward when the BLS’s model predicts more jobs than the final data indicates; this tends to happen when the economy is transitioning from expansion to contraction—i.e., shifting into recession.

The recent BLS data is flashing a big, red warning sign. In July, the BLS revised payrolls for May and June downward by 258,000 jobs. Outside of recessions, this was the largest two-month downward revision of payroll data since 1968. It is possible that the BLS model is slightly off base, as a result of post-pandemic data, or worsening response rate trends—though only time will tell. But, clearly, Trump was worried enough about the numbers to tell the American people that the numbers were “rigged.”

When we dive deeper into the treasure trove of available (and, yes, credible) data, we see things aren’t indicating recession (yet), but there are other warning signs.

At the Federal Reserve Board Meeting two weeks ago, the Fed signaled that—so far—it sees the risks of unemployment and price increases remain. That’s why it held interest rates steady at 4.25 to 4.5%.

There are signs that the U.S. economy has slowed. In the second quarter of 2025, gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 3%, which sounds promising, but this number was skewed by all those who pulled spending forward in the hopes of avoiding Trump’s chaotic tariffs. During the first quarter, imports surged by 38% as firms sought to get ahead of higher prices from Trump’s tariffs, which—since imports are subtracted from GDP—lowered GDP to a dismal 0.5%. My colleagues and I didn’t worry about that because we knew that in the second quarter firms would cut back on imports and draw down stocks of inventory, pushing GDP upward, which is exactly what happened.

But, now it is clear that, over the first half of the year, the economy grew by just 1.2%, about half the 2.5% average over 2024, which is far from great. Further, in the second quarter, final sales to private domestic purchasers, which tends to be a better indicator of future growth, grew by only 1.2%, down from 1.9% in the first quarter. Also, not great.

Inflation remains hotter than the Fed would like. July’s consumer price index came in at 2.7%, and when the more volatile food and energy prices are stripped out, the index rose by 3.1%—well above the Fed’s 2% target.

And here we come back to trust. The White House didn’t like that number either, so it reported inflation was 1.9 percent—a full 0.8 percentage points below what the data indicated. Perhaps it is using an average since January, instead of the standard 12-month average. It’s unclear.

What is clear is that Trump’s economic shenanigans are creating strain for the American economy. We know without a shadow of a doubt that his signature on the Republican budget bill means that family budgets are going to be hard hit, raising costs for millions of families for health care, food, and electricity bills. And we know that even though Trump’s favorite metric—the stock market—consistently rebounds after his antics, that doesn’t mean that Americans will.

Now more than ever, we need to have confidence in the data. Trump is sowing seeds of doubt. But we have ways to ensure integrity. And it starts with the Senate, which must stand up not for truthiness but actual truth. Trump’s nominee for BLS chair, E.J. Antoni, has not only called for other agencies to “take a chainsaw” to the bureau he might lead, but he also was photographed at the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. For a role that demands respect for process, these should be disqualifying.

Heather Boushey served on President Joe Biden's Council of Economic Advisers and was chief economist for the Invest in America Cabinet at the White House.

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