Firing the BLS Commissioner Over a Weak Jobs Report

What happened

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, inside the Department of Labor, publishes the monthly employment report and the consumer price index, among the most closely watched economic data in the world. On the morning of August 1, 2025, it reported that employers had added 73,000 jobs in July, against forecasts of 109,000. It also revised May and June down by 258,000 jobs (The Guardian; the BBC put the figure at 250,000). According to the BBC, it was the largest downward revision outside the Covid era since 1979. US stock markets were rattled that day, as Trump pressed ahead with higher import tariffs (BBC).

Hours later, President Trump announced on social media that he had fired Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, claiming she had "RIGGED" the figures "to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad." Leaving the White House, he said: "I believe the numbers were phony, just like they were before the election, and there were other times - so you know what I did? I fired her, and you know what I did? The right thing" (BBC). McEntarfer, a career government economist for more than 20 years, had been confirmed in 2023 near-unanimously, with support that included then-Senator JD Vance.

No evidence of manipulation was offered (NPR noted the President gave "zero evidence"). CNN reported that since 2003 the average monthly revision has been 51,000 jobs. The BBC reported that revisions are not unusual: during the Biden presidency, figures for 12 months over 2023-24 were revised down by 818,000 jobs, and analysts said the July changes, though much larger than usual, were consistent with other data showing a slowing economy. McEntarfer said the revisions came from businesses responding late to the survey (The Guardian). The Guardian also reported that, under cuts by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the bureau's staff had fallen 20 percent since January after hiring freezes and delayed onboarding.

The reaction crossed party lines. Michael Strain of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute defended McEntarfer's integrity. The group Friends of BLS, whose members include two former commissioners, warned that politicising economic data "has destroyed public trust in all official statistics" where other governments have tried it (BBC). An NBER working paper used the firing as an event study and found that "measures of economic policy uncertainty rose sharply," consistent with reduced trust in official data.

Trump nominated E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation and a vocal BLS critic. The White House withdrew the nomination on September 30, 2025 (CNN).

Legal analysis

Rome Statute. No international crime is in play. The crime type is none.

Removal power. Under 29 U.S.C. § 3 the Commissioner of Labor Statistics "shall hold his office for four years, unless sooner removed." The statute contains no for-cause protection, so the President had the legal power to remove McEntarfer. The firing was not ultra vires.

Abuse of office. The grade turns on the purpose of the removal. The President's own words establish the reason: the numbers were unwelcome, and he accused the official of fraud without evidence. The UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics (endorsed by the General Assembly in 2014, non-binding) call for statistical agencies to work on professional grounds, free of political interference. Removing a chief statistician because the data are bad for the government inverts that principle. It also tells the statistician's successors what happens to a commissioner whose numbers displease the President.

Strongest defence argument. The commissioner serves at the President's pleasure, the President is entitled to lose confidence in an agency head, and the July revisions were unusually large. On this view, the firing was a management decision about a struggling agency. The defence fails on the record: the President did not cite methodology or management, he cited "rigged" numbers, and nobody has produced evidence for that. Any genuine concern about data quality is an argument for investment in the bureau, which had lost staff, not for removing its head on the day of a bad report.

Why this grade

Major. The major grade covers using government institutions for political ends, including retaliatory firings of oversight officials. Removing the head of the national statistical agency on the day it published unwelcome data, with an unsupported accusation of fraud, falls within it. It is not severe because no individual's human rights were violated beyond the loss of a position the statute did not protect. The harm is institutional: an NBER study documents a measurable rise in economic uncertainty. No international crime is in play, so the entry carries no warCrimeClassification.