All E.J. Antoni’s Labor Statistics

President Trump did himself no favors by firing the Bureau of Labor Statistics head because he didn’t like last month’s jobs report. He also did no favors for his nominated BLS replacement, Heritage Foundation chief economist E.J. Antoni, who will now have to overcome public skepticism to show the data can be trusted.

Stipulate first that the BLS data has become increasingly volatile in recent years. Last month’s jobs report revised down gains by 258,000 for May and June. This suggested that growth stalled this spring. Mr. Trump then claimed without evidence that the numbers were “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.”

The truth is that the recent sharp downward revisions are a result of declining business survey response rates that require agency statisticians to rely more on models and guesswork...