President Donald Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Friday, accusing Dr. Erika McEntarfer of manipulating employment data for political purposes after the agency released a jobs report showing significant economic weakness.
Hours after the report’s release, Trump announced on Truth Social that he had directed his team to fire McEntarfer immediately, labeling her a “Biden Political Appointee” who had “faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala’s chances of Victory.”
“Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes,” Trump wrote. He provided no evidence to support his allegations of data manipulation, despite the BLS being widely regarded as maintaining statistical independence. There is no evidence of Trump’s accusations.
The July 2025 employment report revealed troubling economic indicators.
The U.S. economy added only 73,000 jobs in July, falling well short of the 100,000-115,000 jobs economists had expected. More concerning were the substantial downward revisions to previous months’ data, with May and June figures revised down by a combined 258,000 jobs.
Specifically, May’s job growth was revised from an initial estimate of 144,000 down to just 19,000, while June’s figures were slashed from 147,000 to only 14,000. The unemployment rate edged up to 4.2% from 4.1% in June.
These revisions meant that job growth over the past three months averaged a mere 35,000 positions, marking the weakest hiring pace since the pandemic began in 2020.
Trump also criticized Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in the same post, calling him “Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell” and suggesting he should be “put ‘out to pasture'”.
Dr. Erika McEntarfer, who became the 16th Commissioner of Labor Statistics in January 2024, is a respected labor economist with over 20 years of federal government experience. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Bard College and a Ph.D. in economics from Virginia Tech.
McEntarfer previously worked at the U.S. Census Bureau, the Treasury Department, and served as a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Biden administration. She was confirmed by the Senate in January 2024 by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 86-8.
Economists attributed the sharp slowdown in hiring to uncertainty created by Trump’s trade and immigration policies. Manufacturing lost 11,000 jobs in July, while the federal government eliminated 12,000 positions as part of broader workforce reductions.
The financial markets have reacted negatively to the jobs report, Trump’s firing of McEntarfer and the Fed’s announcement that it will not reduce interest rates in this quarter.
The BLS has traditionally operated with considerable autonomy from political interference to ensure the credibility of its data with financial markets and policymakers. Trump’s action raises concerns about the future independence of government statistical agencies and the reliability of official economic data.
