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u.s. department of labor
Trump Names 'Utterly Unqualified' Project 2025 Economist as New Labor Stats Chief
"The cost of this incompetence will be felt by working people first," said one economist.
Aug 12, 2025
Less than two weeks after firing the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, baselessly claiming that she had released manipulated jobs data, President Donald Trump on Monday appeared to have found a "solution" to the problem of weak economic numbers that have been plaguing his administration: a new nominee to lead the agency who, according to one conservative economist, is "as partisan as it gets."
The president announced on his Truth Social platform that he was nominating E.J. Antoni, the chief economist for the right-wing Heritage Foundation's Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, to lead the BLS, saying Antoni "will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE."
"Our economy is booming," he declared.
The announcement was made days after Trump demanded the firing of Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner who served under both him and former President Joe Biden. McEntarfer, Trump suggested, had released a false jobs report saying that only 73,000 jobs were added to the economy in July and that previous estimates had overstated the new job numbers by 258,000.
Economists say the discrepancy between the actual job numbers and the earlier projections was not unusual and likely explained by "seasonal adjustments and more complete survey responses," as Axios reported. There is no evidence that McEntarfer manipulated the data to harm Trump politically, as the president suggested, or that she did the same during the Biden administration "in the hopes" of getting Democratic nominee Kamala Harris elected president.
But experts wondered if Americans can trust that Antoni, should he be confirmed to lead the BLS, won't manipulate jobs data to support the appearance of what Trump calls a "booming" economy—one in which grocery prices have once again jumped, according to the consumer price index (CPI) numbers that the bureau released Tuesday. Tariffs imposed by the president have driven up the cost of imported goods.
"Antoni has repeatedly and unfairly attacked the agency he'd be set to run, contributed to the right-wing Project 2025 policy blueprint, and in his role at the Heritage Foundation has stretched the truth about the economy to make partisan political claims," said Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
Antoni, who earned his Ph.D. in economics in 2020, is listed as the fifth contributor to Project 2025, the right-wing policy agenda that calls for the gutting of the federal government. He has called for the U.S. Labor Department to be staffed by far more political appointees instead of career civil servants.
He said on former Trump aide Steve Bannon's podcast that the absence of a Trump appointee in the top position at the BLS is "part of the reason why we continue to have all of these different data problems," but Brian Albrecht, chief economist at the International Center for Law and Economics, highlighted on the social media platform X a number of instances of Antoni "completely not understanding economic statistics, being partisan hack, or both."
For example, in February Antoni used data showing the total population growth of native-born Americans to claim that foreign-born workers have benefited from "all net job growth"—but as economist Jeremy Horpedahl of the Arkansas Center for Research in Economics noted, using data on working-age, native-born Americans would have rendered a far more accurate analysis.
"The working-age, native-born population hasn't been growing for the past decade," said Horpedahl at the time. "If you use the working-age populations, you will see that native-born Americans have higher employment rates, which are also at record highs."
Having called the CPI an "Orwellian trick" used to mask high inflation, Antoni is unlikely to put much stock in the index numbers that were released Tuesday, which Yale University economist Ernie Tedeschi said straightforwardly show that "the prices of consumer goods are higher right now than they would be without tariffs."
Antoni has long been critical of the agency he's been nominated to lead, saying last week, "There are better ways to collect, process, and disseminate data—that is the task for the next BLS commissioner, and only consistent delivery of accurate data in a timely manner will rebuild the trust that has been lost over the last several years."
The nominee "has never worked in statistics collection," said Joseph Politano, who writes about monetary policy at Apricitas Economics. "He is five years out of his Ph.D. He's only ever written one economics paper. His explicit, only qualifications are that he works in ultraconservative think tanks and believes Trump's conspiracies about the BLS. Grim stuff."
The criticism of Antoni was bipartisan, with Stan Veuger, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, calling him "utterly unqualified and as partisan as it gets."
Bivens warned that Trump's selection of Antoni "makes it clear that he expects the BLS commissioner to only release data that shows the economy is booming—even if it means the data must be manipulated or changed by political appointees."
"This move is undemocratic—and economically dangerous," said Bivens. "The economy runs on reliable data... Trump's attempt to politicize BLS means that policymakers and the public wouldn't be able to trust the data. If this happens, confidence in U.S. data will collapse and reasonable economic decision-making will be impossible. This manufactured chaos will reduce business investment and consumer spending, making a recession—and soaring unemployment—far more likely in coming months. Between illegal firings of public servants, starving data agencies of needed resources, and now political intimidation, the U.S. looks set to run into the next economic downturn flying blind."
"The cost of this incompetence," he added, "will be felt by working people first."
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Sanders Leads Call for Trump Admin to Ensure Access to Safety Net Programs—Without Red Tape
"Your surprise actions will put millions of American lives in jeopardy by adding new barriers for individuals and families to access critical programs."
Aug 04, 2025
Weeks after the Trump administration reversed a federal policy going back nearly three decades that has allowed immigrants to benefit from public health, education, and labor programs, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders led a dozen of his Democratic colleagues in demanding that President Donald Trump's Cabinet members undo the "cruel and targeted" action that will "confuse and undermine" families as well as service providers.
Sanders (I-Vt.) spearheaded a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and Attorney General Pam Bondi about the administration's reinterpretation of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), which the Trump officials determined had long "improperly extended certain federal public benefits to illegal aliens."
The lawmakers pointed out that the interpretation of PRWORA that was adopted in 1998 already excluded immigrants who were not listed as "qualified" for federal public benefits, but in July 10, the Health and Human Services Department issued a notice to exclude "education, public health, and safety-net programs such as Head Start, community health centers, and the Community Services Block Grants," while the departments of Labor and Education announced similar restrictions.
The senators—including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.)—said that rescinding the 1998 interpretation of the law will:
- Add unnecessary tape to Head Start programs by requiring families to prove their immigration status;
- Force mental health care providers to waste time screening for citizenship status instead of providing treatment;
- Jeopardize everyone—U.S. citizens and immigrants—who receives assistance for housing, nutrition, utilities, transit, and job training through Community Services Block Grant funding and thus trap more people in poverty;
- Deny career services to immigrants who form parts of their local economies and who would otherwise have been eligible for workforce training programs; and
- Prevent some community members from developing job skills that could serve the U.S. economy.
"Your surprise actions will put millions of American lives in jeopardy by adding new barriers for individuals and families to access critical programs. They will shift costs and add administrative burdens to already strained state and local governments. Furthermore, your actions will have a chilling effect on otherwise eligible families, such as those with U.S. citizen children, lawful permanent residents, and even eligible U.S. citizens, who may lack the requisite paperwork or be deterred from seeking services available to them," the senators wrote. "Not only will the requirements make the delivery of services less efficient for all Americans, they could also lead to racial profiling or other discriminatory practices—beyond the discrimination inherent in the restrictions themselves."
"Your actions will have a chilling effect on otherwise eligible families, such as those with U.S. citizen children, lawful permanent residents, and even eligible U.S. citizens, who may lack the requisite paperwork or be deterred from seeking services available to them."
The lawmakers called on the administration to reverse the policies to "immediately to prevent further harm not only to immigrant communities but to the nation as a whole."
The policy was announced last month amid Trump's ramp-up of his anti-immigration agenda, including through mass deportations, an expansion of immigrant detention capacity, and an attack on birthright citizenship.
"Your collective actions put lives at risk," wrote the senators, "turn back decades of precedent in our country, and undermine what should be shared goals: supporting the health, education, well-being, and economic self-sufficiency of everyone who lives in this country."
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As Economic Indicators Point to Recession, Trump Moves to Hide Key Data From Public
"Unfortunately tossing a scarf over the GDP numbers doesn't change the fact that their policies have us careening toward a downturn."
Mar 21, 2025
All signs are pointing to a coming recession as U.S. President Donald Trump imposes tariffs on close trading partners, oversees mass firings of civil servants, and pushes for cuts to public services—but by firing economists, advisers, and other experts tasked with advising federal agencies on economic shifts, the administration is working to ensure that the government and the public can't read those signs.
As Politico reported Friday, experts serving on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) Technical Advisory Committee were informed this week that they were no longer needed, leaving the BLS without a panel that has long advised the Labor Department on how economic changes can impact data collection.
A page for the committee was removed from the Labor Department's website, along with one that had information about the Data Users Advisory Committee, which has advised on how businesses and policymakers can use the agency's economic reports.
"It would be a bad sign for a software company to cancel all beta testing if you expect to keep making better software," Michael Madowitz, an economist at the Roosevelt Institute who served on the data users committee, told Politico. "This feels like the same sort of thing."
The dismissal of the advisers follows the disbanding by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick of another advisory board that has worked for years to ensure the government produces accurate data on economic indicators—the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee (FESAC), which worked under the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.
"If laying off tens or hundreds of thousands of federal workers is going to drag down macroeconomic indicators in ways that are unhelpful to them, they're apparently quite willing to just rewrite definitions so they can insulate themselves to the extent possible from the fallout."
"Reduced transparency in official statistics is perhaps the most troubling aspect of disbanding FESAC," wrote Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist, at Bloomberg on March 11. "Cutting off agency staff from external advisers creates an environment where political interference could occur much more easily—and go undetected. With political officials such as Lutnick arguing publicly that GDP should exclude government spending, it is especially important to have external, independent experts."
On Wednesday, the Federal Housing Finance Authority also placed workers who helped compile its home price index on administrative leave.
The dismantling of much of the federal government's data analysis apparatus comes amid the illegal firing of the two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission just after one called on FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson to take 10 steps to lower prices for U.S. consumers.
"This administration wants to write its own narrative," Stephanie Kelton, a professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University, told The Nation after the disbanding of FESAC. "If laying off tens or hundreds of thousands of federal workers is going to drag down macroeconomic indicators in ways that are unhelpful to them, they're apparently quite willing to just rewrite definitions so they can insulate themselves to the extent possible from the fallout."
The latest advisory committee firings this week came as the Federal Reserve projected higher unemployment, faster inflation, and slower growth—or "stagflation." Economic growth this year was projected to be 2.1% in the last weeks of former President Joe Biden's administration; the Fed now expects 1.7% growth, as well as the unemployment rate rising to 4.4%.
Other negative economic indicators include the largest manufacturing decline in nearly two years, according to the New York Federal Reserve's Manufacturing Index, and declining consumer confidence, with bars and restaurants reporting their largest sales decline last month since February 2023.
Members of Trump's own administration are increasingly admitting that a recession could be in the near future, but as Lindsay Owens, executive director of progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative, said Friday, "the Trump administration is testing whether you can prevent a recession with a disappearing act."
"Unfortunately tossing a scarf over the GDP numbers doesn't change the fact that their policies have us careening toward a downturn," said Owens. "The fact that they are ramping up their obfuscation tactics confirms it."
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