How many commissioners of the Bureau of Labor Statistics can you name? For a vast majority of people (and even most economists) the answer would be zero. And for good reason. While several highly accomplished and effective people have served in that role over the years, it is fundamentally about making sure the plumbing of our data infrastructure is working. Most of us just accept that the data is the best possible estimate of the economy — just as we do not think much about where our water comes from, we simply drink it — and instead argue about much harder and less objective questions, like whether inflation is transitory or job growth is trending toward recession.
Unfortunately, that could change if the Senate confirms President Trump’s pick, E.J. Antoni, to be the next B.L.S. commissioner.
When Mr. Trump abruptly fired the B.L.S. commissioner after negative jobs number revisions this month, he wrote on social media that he would find someone “much more competent and qualified” for the post. He is proposing replacing Erika McEntarfer, a highly respected economist with decades of experience working at the U.S. Census Bureau and elsewhere, with a partisan favored for the job by Steve Bannon.
Dr. Antoni’s posts that have shown apparent misunderstandings of import prices and the baby boom retirement have gotten the most attention and criticism, along with his statement before the nomination that the monthly jobs report should be suspended.
But even more egregious, as Alan Cole, an economist at the right-leaning Tax Foundation, has pointed out, is that in October 2024 Dr. Antoni took the time to publish a report that purported to find that “the American economy has actually been in recession since 2022.” This claim was based on a concept of “adjusted real” disposable income, which was down about 2 percent from 2019 to 2024 — in contrast to the official data, which showed real disposable income up 12 percent over this period. The problem was his measure effectively double-counted housing inflation, making the inflation rate artificially higher and growth artificially lower.
Dr. Antoni’s selection has done something I have rarely seen, which is to unite a number of economists and policy wonks from across the political spectrum. The American Enterprise Institute’s Stan Veuger told The Washington Post that “he is utterly unqualified and as partisan as it gets.” Similar sentiments were echoed by people affiliated with conservative and libertarian think tanks, in a Wall Street Journal editorial and a National Review article.
The reason people are so worried is that the B.L.S. produces the two most important economic reports every month: the employment report and the Consumer Price Index inflation report, both of which are central to decision making by the Federal Reserve, financial markets and businesses more broadly. The employment report has suffered from fewer businesses answering the survey questions that the B.L.S. relies on. Both reports have suffered from deep budget cuts at the B.L.S. and are likely to suffer more now that Mr. Trump has disbanded key technical inputs like the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee. Despite these challenges, revisions to the jobs numbers have not gotten markedly worse in recent years.
It’s possible that Dr. Antoni will simply be a missed opportunity to make improvements and B.L.S.’s budget will be cut further.
But there are darker scenarios. A B.L.S. commissioner could suspend publication of data like China did when it was trying to cover up high youth unemployment rates. Or an effort to overhaul the methodology could end up breaking the statistics instead.
The B.L.S. commissioner does not see the jobs, inflation or other vital data until after it is finalized. That, however, is only a norm — just like respecting the fixed term of the B.L.S. commissioner is a norm. If a commissioner changed it, he could, for example, ask tough questions to push the numbers in Trump’s desired direction — something that could happen even without the conscious intent to commit fraud. I have no doubt whistle-blowers in the agency would alert the world. But I also have no doubt that this would turn into another debate with multiple sides, just like the firing of the B.L.S. commissioner itself has become.
In the past, conspiracy theories about the government cooking the books were made by isolated people and did not gain serious traction in either political party. But now that Mr. Trump is threatening to destroy trust in the data, he’s threatening the water that we drink without thinking about it. And an even more post-truth world will be bad for all of us.
Jason Furman, a contributing Opinion writer, was chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2013 to 2017.
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