President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics is floating the idea of suspending the monthly jobs report in favor of less-frequent quarterly data published by the statistical agency.
E.J. Antoni said that BLS should halt issuing the reports — which are widely relied upon by economists, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street and other businesses to gauge the state of the economy in close to real time — until its methods can be improved to limit subsequent revisions.
“How on earth are businesses supposed to plan — or how is the Fed supposed to conduct monetary policy — when they don’t know how many jobs are being added or lost in our economy?” Antoni said in an interview with Fox Business released Tuesday.
“Until it is corrected, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data,” said Antoni, who is currently the chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Such a change would almost certainly unnerve markets, and it is unclear what criteria BLS would need to meet to bring those monthly reports back online.
The Fox Business report said the interview was conducted Monday, before Trump’s announcement naming him as the nominee to serve as BLS commissioner.
“Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE,” the president posted on his Truth Social account Monday evening. “I know E.J. Antoni will do an incredible job in this new role.”
Trump fired the sitting commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, earlier this month after the employment report for July included unexpectedly large revisions for the two prior months — wiping away more than a quarter-million jobs, a sizable chunk of the growth under the early part of Trump’s first year back in office.
Trump alleged without evidence that those numbers, as well as previous BLS data published under her tenure, were manipulated to damage Republicans.
Administration officials and Trump-friendly economists like Antoni have separately tried to explain McEntarfer’s ouster as a matter of competence and ensuring trust in the bureau’s work.
“The fact that you consistently have large downward revisions means that there are other things wrong with your models and methodologies,” Antoni told Fox Business. “Statistical assumptions that may have worked fine before Covid no longer work in today’s economy and therefore need to be revised.”
However, Antoni’s comments will surely come up in the Senate confirmation process.
Stephen Lewerenz, a spokesperson for Senate HELP Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.), said the agency needs a leader “committed to producing accurate, unbiased economic information to the American people.”
“Chairman Cassidy looks forward to meeting with Dr. Antoni to discuss how he will accomplish this,” Lewerenz said.
