President Donald Trump fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer, sparking bipartisan criticism, after claiming that the latest jobs report was “rigged” in a Truth Social post. The report claimed the US economy added 73,000 jobs in July, a number lower than expectations, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.2%, raising concerns about the state of the labor market. The report also said the federal government continued to shed jobs, with 12,000 lost in July and a total of 84,000 since January. This comes amid an ongoing trade war and economic uncertainty, which have raised questions about firms' willingness to hire.
McEntarfer’s firing comes amid the Trump Administration’s general restructuring of the government under the Department of Government Efficiency. In July, rumors surfaced of President Trump’s desire to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over similar issues of economic dissatisfaction, but were quickly denied by Trump himself.
Outlets on the left were critical of Trump’s move to fire the commissioner, while outlets on the right were split on how distressing the jobs report actually was.
A writer for Slate (Left bias) said, “If Trump is concerned about the quality of the data, he has only himself to blame. As the Wall Street Journal reported in June, Trump-era staffing cuts—under the auspices of Elon Musk’s DOGE—have left the bureau with fewer workers, a situation that has led some economists to raise questions about its continued ability to accurately gauge inflation. The elimination of some BLS advisory groups, followed by the deletion of data sets that don’t align with the Trump administration’s narrative, also hasn’t helped things.”
A Zerohedge (Lean Right) analysis read, “Since Trump took over, foreign-born workers have declined 5 out of 6 months, while native-born have increased 5 out of 6 months…But since there is less supply of native-American workers compared to the torrent of foreign-born illegals… the US labor market has hit a bottleneck. And the only thing that will lift that bottleneck is when employers - who clearly still need workers, just not American workers - start paying higher wages. The only question then will be whether the modest increase in inflation will be worth the drop in asset prices, as an increase in overall wages and spending will likely result in a stronger economy.”
An opinion in Vox (Left) read, “Politicization of economic data is something that typically happens in authoritarian regimes or economic basket cases, and it would be a grim trend if it started happening here… Furthermore, there are many other economic statistics collected by the federal government, states, and businesses — so any effort to cover up the state of the US economy will be doomed to fail.”
A columnist for the Wall Street Journal Opinion (Lean Right) wrote, “While most employers aren’t doing mass layoffs, hiring has slowed to a trickle. Nurses, doctors and construction workers can find jobs, but few others can. Unemployment has climbed most among teens and new college grads. Social Security claims spiked this spring, perhaps because older employees are taking employer buyouts and retiring… Mr. Trump does himself and his party no favors by waving away economic reality. Democrats spent the Biden presidency playing down inflation, and look where it got them.”
