Ex-BLS heads say Trump’s firing of labor statistics chief ‘undermines credibility’

The former Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioners and non-partisan economic groups have criticized Donald Trump’s shock firing of BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer after the July jobs report data revealed jobs growth stalled this summer.

Trump, without any evidence to back his claims, alleged McEntarfer “faked” employment numbers in the run-up to the 2024 election to boost Kamala Harris’s chances and said that the recent data was “rigged” to make Trump and Republicans look bad.

The Trump administration has continued to repeat the allegations. The National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett, a Trump appointee, has claimed “all over the US government, there have been people who have been resisting Trump everywhere they can,” in justifying the firing.

Friends of BLS, a group chaired by former BLS commissioners Erica Groshen, an Obama appointee, and William Beach, Trump’s appointee during his first term, strongly criticized the firing of McEntarfer, Trump’s allegations, and called on Congress to act.

“We call on Congress to respond immediately, to investigate the factors that led to Commissioner McEntarfer’s removal, to strongly urge the Commissioner’s continued service, and ensure that the nonpartisan integrity of the position is retained,” Friends of BLS wrote in a statement. “This rationale for firing Dr McEntarfer is without merit and undermines the credibility of federal economic statistics that are a cornerstone of intelligent economic decision-making by businesses, families, and policymakers.”

The Association of Public Data Users, the National Association for Business Economics and the American Economic Association also criticized the firing.

“Under the law, disliking the data is not a qualifying reason to remove the BLS Commissioner from her four-year appointment. Under our democracy, it is unacceptable to fire someone for publishing data collected in accordance with scientific standards,” the Association of Public Data Users said in a statement, echoing the call for Congress “to respond immediately, to investigate the factors that led to Commissioner McEntarfer’s removal, to strongly urge the BLS Commissioner’s continued service, and ensure that the nonpartisan integrity of the position is retained.”

Beach added in a social media post: “the totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer, my successor as Commissioner of Labor Statistics at BLS, sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau.”

Beach was nominated by Trump as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2017, was confirmed by the Senate in 2019 and served a full four year term until 2023.

In an email, former BLS commissioner Kathleen Utgoff, who was appointed and served under the George W Bush administration, told the Guardian: “A functioning democracy requires accurate data so that workers, businesses, politicians and voters can make good decisions. I was at the BLS after the Iraq war. Many people asked me how to create something like the BLS there. They could not move forward without data on the state of the economy.”

Republican US senators Rand Paul, Thom Tillis, Cynthia Lummis have also questioned the rationale behind Trump’s firing of BLS commissioner McEntarfer.

The last jobs report issued by BLS before the presidential election in November 2024 showed the US only added 12,000 jobs in October 2024, the slowest growth since 2020.