[The phrase "lies damned lies and statistics" was popularized in the United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli.]
President Donald Trump has fired the Biden-appointed commissioner of Labor Statistics who he said had "rigged" the job numbers to "make Republicans, and me look bad."
Erika McEntarfer was canned by Trump as chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) hours after the economic data collection agency released a report showing lower than expected employment gains in July and revised numbers for May and June downward by a total of 258,000 jobs.
McEntarfer is a career federal employee.
She was confirmed by the Senate to lead BLS in January 2024 after previously serving as a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisors under Biden.
Trump accused McEntarfer of manipulating the data and charged that she had also done so in the past.
The president wrote in a post to Truth Social:
I was just informed that our Country’s “Jobs Numbers” are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who 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?Trump was referring to last August’s BLS revision of job growth for the 12 months ending in March 2024 which was the largest downward revision to U.S. payroll figures since 2009. The revision drew outrage from some Republican lawmakers, who suggested the numbers were intentionally fudged to benefit the Biden-Harris regime.
We need accurate Jobs Numbers. 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. McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months. Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative. The Economy is BOOMING under “TRUMP” despite a Fed that also plays games, this time with Interest Rates, where they lowered them twice, and substantially, just before the Presidential Election, I assume in the hopes of getting “Kamala” elected – How did that work out? Jerome “Too Late” Powell should also be put “out to pasture.” Thank you for your attention to this matter!
In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad — Just like when they had three great days around the 2024 Presidential Election, and then, those numbers were “taken away” on November 15, 2024, right after the Election, when the Jobs Numbers were massively revised DOWNWARD, making a correction of over 818,000 Jobs — A TOTAL SCAM. Jerome “Too Late” Powell is no better! But, the good news is, our Country is doing GREAT!
Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, who last year demanded testimony from McEntarfer over the job stats revisions, praised Trump for removing her from the top BLS post.
“I have been raising concerns for the past year about inaccurate job numbers put out by Dr. Erika McEntarfer,” Marshall wrote on X. “Her cooked-up numbers have misled the American people for too long.”
“Glad President [Trump] is going to clean this up.”
