President Donald Trump's pick to take over America's labor and economic data agency has a unique idea for how to solve its recent accuracy issue: pausing jobs reports altogether.
Instead, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) nominee E.J. Antoni argues that the agency should shift to making “more accurate” quarterly reports, criticizing its monthly report as “unreliable” in an interview with Fox Business.
Antoni's comments come a day after the President nominated him to replace BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, who was fired by Trump after a weak July jobs report. The move drew the ire of economists on both sides of the aisle, including Trump's former BLS Commissioner Bill Beach.
Trump claims he fired McEntarfer for rigging the jobs reports for ‘political' reasons. July job additions came in at a soft 73,000 additions, while downward revisions to jobs data from May and June caused the President to lash out.
But why are jobs numbers being revised down? Why are they not right the first time?
What are Downward Revisions?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics collects labor data through a survey of businesses and households, which takes up to three months to complete because of the sheer size of the sample.
Per the BLS, the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program is, “a monthly survey of approximately 121,000 businesses and government agencies representing approximately 631,000 worksites throughout the United States.”
Data from the initial month is reported, then revised in coming months as new data arrives. These are the revisions, which have been predominately to the downside under the Biden and Trump presidencies. They have also gotten bigger.
Last August, the BLS said that the U.S. economy added 818,000 less jobs than initially reported over the 12 preceding months, a testament to the sheer size of downward revisions.
It has continued under Trump. In May and June 2025, the BLS said that the U.S. economy added 139,000 and 147,000 jobs respectively. The BLS later said that the combined job additions from both months was just 33,000. That's a 200,000 job difference and one of the largest revisions in history.
It's Not Just Republicans Worried About Data
Even before Trump fired McEntarfer, economists were already increasingly worried about the state of economic data. In a poll by Reuters, “89 of 100 top policy experts” echoed concerns with its credibility, which has dragged in light of turnover and layoffs at the agency.
Compounding problems, the response rate on surveys has been in decline, leading to greater disenchantment with government-issued stats. Bloomberg reported on the troubling decline in 2023 on the decline. The worry chief among them is that less responses from households and businesses will produce less representative data.
That's bound to exacerbate concerns among already-concerned economists, a Fed which relies on data to make decisions, and households seeking transparency about the state of the economy. And if the recent jobs reports truly are any indication, the end of more frequent reports could keep investors on their toes.
