Trump Fires Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Hours After Unfavorable Jobs Report

President Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on August 1, 2025, hours after a government report showed the U.S. economy added only 73,000 jobs in July, far below expectations, with downward revisions of 258,000 jobs for May and June combined. Trump accused McEntarfer of ‘rigging’ the numbers and ‘faking’ the data ‘for political purposes,’ providing no evidence for his claims.

Context: McEntarfer was nominated by President Biden in July 2023 and confirmed by the Senate in January 2024 with an 86-8 bipartisan vote, including support from Vice President JD Vance. She had served less than two years in the role. McEntarfer defended the accuracy and independence of the agency’s work, explaining that late-responding firms were the principal reason for the negative revisions. The weak jobs data reflected the economic toll of Trump’s tariff policies and federal job cuts.

Significance: Firing the nation’s chief statistician for producing unfavorable economic data mirrors authoritarian practices of manipulating official statistics to serve political narratives. McEntarfer warned that the firing was ‘a dangerous step’ and ‘an attack on the independence of an institution arguably as important as the Federal Reserve for economic stability.’ This action undermines trusted economic reporting that markets and policymakers rely on, threatening data integrity across federal statistical agencies.