The damage to economic data may already be done, by Egan Reich
Today’s must-read: Confidence in the Bureau of Labor Statistics is already badly weakened, Reich writes.
 

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Donald Trump’s choice to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t have to manipulate any numbers to undermine the reliability of the government’s jobs reports, Egan Reich writes.

(Illustration by Matteo Giuseppe Pani / The Atlantic)

 

If you have been closely following the ongoing Bureau of Labor Statistics story—in which Donald Trump fired then-Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after being displeased by the bureau’s July jobs report and selected the Heritage Foundation economist E. J. Antoni to succeed her—you will have heard an unusual consensus about the airtight political independence of the agency and the people who work there. Among BLS employees, including former Commissioner William Beach, whom Trump appointed in his first term, a fierce loyalty to the data is bone deep.

Antoni does not appear to share that spirit of independence, nor does he seem to have a great deal of talent for economics or statistics, according to economists from across the political spectrum. Even so, his power to avoid future reports that embarrass Trump appears to be limited.

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