President Trump鈥檚 advisers are defending his decision to fire the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after Friday鈥檚 jobs report showed the economy gaining just 73,000 jobs in July.
In a on Friday, Trump baselessly claimed the numbers 鈥渨ere RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.鈥�
On Sunday, National Economic Council Director said Trump 鈥渨ants his own people there so that when we see the numbers, they鈥檙e more transparent and more reliable.鈥�
William Beach, who served as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner during President Trump鈥檚 first term, told Here & Now the president鈥檚 decision to fire McEntarfer has damaged the agency鈥檚 credibility.
鈥淚 think damage has been done, even if it鈥檚 the best possible person,鈥� Beach said, referring to the next person who runs the agency. 鈥淭here will be a time in the next, you know, year or two or so when the number comes in really low and we鈥檒l all say, 鈥榳ell, you know, it was probably lower, but the commissioner had an influence on those numbers.鈥� Now I won鈥檛 say that because I know the staff, the loyal Americans who work there, and people who have deep knowledge about the system won鈥檛 say that, but most Americans trust the president and they say, 鈥榃ell, the president says it鈥檚 cooked, it鈥檚 cooked.鈥欌��
4 questions with William Beach
What鈥檚 your reaction to the Trump administration saying Trump wants his 鈥渙wn people鈥� as the BLS commissioner to ensure reliable numbers鈥�?
鈥�First off, it鈥檚 perfectly OK for President Trump to want his own person in that position. Remember, there鈥檚 only one presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed position at BLS, and that is the commissioner, and that鈥檚 perfectly OK.
鈥淭he other part of it, so that the numbers could be accurate, says that there is a huge role to play by the commissioner in the formation of those numbers, and that鈥檚 the part that is not correct.
鈥淭he commissioner has a leadership role for sure, you know, CEO and so forth, but the processes of creating the numbers, particularly the employment numbers and the inflation numbers, are really kept really distant from the commissioner. Remember the commissioner is the only person who represents the administration in the bureau. And so the numbers are collected without the commissioner鈥檚 involvement in any way. They鈥檙e processed by BLS at the regional and at the national level. They鈥檙e prepared for the data systems. They鈥檙e even prepared for the publications itself before the commissioner even sees them.鈥�
Is it possible to rig the numbers?
鈥淚t鈥檚 not possible and it鈥檚 not possible by design. When I was commissioner, two years under Trump, two years under Biden, I was locked out of the process, as every commissioner prior to me was, of the preparation of these numbers, and the reason is quite clear: If I wasn鈥檛 locked out, if there was even the hint that the commissioner could get in there and say, 鈥榃ell, you know, this number needs to be rounded up or rounded down鈥� or something, that would mean political interference and the numbers would have less credibility in financial markets and in policymaking markets.鈥�
Are big revisions ordinary?
鈥淚t鈥檚 not out of the ordinary if the economy is turning down or turning up. It鈥檚 during the turning points, and you only know this in retrospect, that you see these large revisions up or larger visions down. Here, what we have is more information. The jobs report is kept open for two months. This is a sample. We get the sample for the first month, make the estimate, get more sample, get more sample, and, getting more sample, we saw that state and local education in particular underperformed what the first estimate was. And I think that was because they were running out of COVID-era money. More information comes in, the sample gets better, the estimates get tighter, you know, by the third sample, we鈥檝e got about 93% of all the thousands and thousands of surveys in, and that means that we鈥檝e got a pretty good number.
鈥淪o what he鈥檚 really criticizing is the effort to make the number more accurate, and that鈥檚 what was happening last week.鈥�
What are the consequences of not trusting statistics?
鈥淚 think the first thing you have to think about is, if I鈥檓 an owner of a business looking at regional data from BLS or if I鈥檓 looking to invest in the United States or buy stocks and bonds but have a little bit of a risk margin, future returns. I鈥檓 going to be wondering whether or not to do that. It creates uncertainty, in other words, financial markets just totally rely on these, on these data and, and that鈥檚 my main concern is that the economy won鈥檛 perform as well.鈥�
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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produced and edited this interview for broadcast with . Scotto also adapted it for the web.
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