President Donald Trump fired the nation’s top labor statistics official over the weekend while igniting a political firestorm regarding the integrity of government economic data.
On Friday, Trump dismissed Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer just hours after her agency reported a sharp slowdown in U.S. job creation, sparking concern about the health of the labor market and market volatility.
Trump accused McEntarfer, a Biden appointee, of manipulating employment numbers for political purposes, writing on social media that she “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,” he added on Truth Social.
“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.”
Friday’s BLS report showed that U.S. employers added only 73,000 jobs in July, far below projections.
The agency also revised job creation for May and June downward by a combined 258,000, marking the sharpest two-month reduction since the early pandemic.
Many Republican officials have now spoken out in favor of this move, with Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer writing on X to state that she “wholeheartedly” supports Trump’s statement and the firing of McEntarfer.
“A recent string of major revisions have come to light and raised concerns about decisions being made by the Biden-appointed Labor Commissioner,” she wrote. “I support the President’s decision to replace Biden’s Commissioner and ensure the American People can trust the important and influential data coming from BLS.”
Similarly, Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, made multiple appearances over the weekend to defend the President’s move, explaining that there were “partisan patterns” in the data and that the information “can’t be propaganda.”
“The President wants his own people there, so that when we see the numbers, they’re more transparent and more reliable,” he said, according to The New York Times.
Although no exact timeline has been announced at the current point, the expectation is that Trump will name replacements for both the BLS commissioner and the Federal Reserve Governor in the coming days, per CNBC.
Despite support from Republicans within the federal government, multiple democratic leaders have called out the move to part ways with McEntarfer.
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said the firing is “way beyond anything that Richard Nixon ever did,” saying that Trump’s statement was a “preposterous charge.”
“There’s no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number,” Summer added, as reported by The Hill.
“The numbers are in line with what we’re seeing from all kinds of private sector sources.”