President Donald Trump’s firing of the chief labor statistician was criticized by her predecessor, who called it an unfounded move that will undermine confidence in a key data set on the US economy.
“This is damaging,” William Beach, whom Trump picked in his first term to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.
Trump on Friday fired Erika McEntarfer hours after labor market data showed weak jobs growth based in part on steep downward revisions for May and June. The move by Trump, who claimed the latest monthly report was “phony,” prompted an outcry from economists and lawmakers.
“I don’t know that there’s any grounds at all for this firing,” said Beach, whom McEntarfer replaced in January 2024. “And it really hurts the statistical system. It undermines credibility in BLS.”
Studies indicate that the agency’s data is more accurate than 20 or 30 years ago, including any revisions of the initial data, Beach said. Even so, he said he’ll trust future BLS data because people working for the agency are “some of the most loyal Americans you can imagine,” making the bureau “the finest statistical agency in the entire world.”
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, speaking Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, urged the US government to improve its data collection to avoid revisions that engender distrust.
“We watch what consumers really do. We watch what businesses really do,” Moynihan said, while not addressing the politics of the firing. “They can get this data, I think, other ways, and I think that’s where the focus would be.”
He noted the revision for May and June data, while not unusual, was one of the largest in seven years. “That creates doubt around it,” he said. “Let’s spend some money. Let’s bring the information together. Let’s find where else in the government money is reported.”
McEntarfer was confirmed by the Senate in a bipartisan 86-8 vote. Vice President JD Vance, then a senator, voted to approve her nomination.
Kevin Hassett, Trump’s chief economic adviser at the White House, alleged that the large jobs data revisions were poorly explained and were evidence enough for a “fresh set of eyes” at BLS. He sought to contradict Beach’s portrayal of the agency as politically neutral.
“The bottom line is that there were people involved in creating these numbers,” Hassett said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Read More: Trump Fires Labor Statistics Head, Prompting Concerns About Data
Pressed on whether Trump would fire anyone offering data he disagreed with, Hassett, who heads the National Economic Council, disagreed.
“No, absolutely not,” he said. “The president wants his own people there so that when we see the numbers, they’re more transparent and more reliable.”