President Donald Trump might not have liked the numbers on Aug. 1, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy had added just 73,000 jobs in July and downwardly revised the two previous months by a combined 258,000.
But his reaction — to fire the head of the agency that reported those numbers — will have a bad effect on the Ohio economy, a big majority of a panel of economists said.
Some economists had worried that massive tariffs levied by Trump, combined with mass deportations and deep cuts to the federal workforce and the social safety net would drag down the economy. That appeared not to be happening, possibly because those potential drags were being offset by the growth of efficiency due to artificial intelligence.
Then the brutal Aug. 1 jobs report hit. Days later, core inflation was reported to have grown in July by 3% — the biggest jump since March 2022.
Upset that his government wasn’t reporting economic numbers that made him look good, Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer.
At least on an acting basis, he replaced her with E.J. Antoni, an economist with the right-wing Heritage Foundation who in the past has been critical of the methods used by the bureau.
Some experts expressed alarm that Trump appeared not to understand how the bureau’s reports are assembled. They also worried that he is working the ref when the world needs to have faith in U.S. economic data in order to have faith in the dollar.
“The president’s belief that the BLS commissioner personally ‘produced’ the jobs numbers is preposterous and shows a complete misunderstanding of how government statistical agencies operate,” Heidi Shierholz, president of the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, said in a statement.
Its website said, “Trump’s move also risks politicizing the office of Commissioner in the future, by threatening their removal if any economic statistical data released does not seem favorable to the White House.”
Most Ohio economists surveyed by Scioto Analysis agreed.
A panel was asked whether it agreed that “Reduced trust in Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates will hurt economic development in Ohio.”
Ten agreed, three disagreed, and one was uncertain.
Several of those who agreed said businesses need solid numbers in order to plan.
“Uncertainty is generally bad for businesses,” Kathryn Wilson of Kent State University wrote in the comments section of the survey. “If business owners don’t feel confident in economic data from the (Bureau of Labor Statistics), they may be hesitant to respond to real changes in the economy.”
One economist who disagreed said it’s incorrect to assume that Antoni will lead an agency that simply reports what Trump wants.
“I disagree with the premise,” wrote David Brasington of the University of Cincinnati. “If the new director makes the (Bureau of Labor Statistics) use more updated models, trust in the numbers could increase. Current BLS surveys have a 45% completion rate compared to 95% in the past.”
There is a precedent for a country juking its economic stats. The results were not good.
In 2007, Graciela Bevacqua was removed from INDEC, the agency that tracks economic statistics for the Argentine government. In charge of tracking inflation, Bevacqua faced intense pressure to report numbers that were much lower than they actually were. She refused.
Her firing was followed by severe government underreporting of inflation and a backlash from the international community. The International Monetary Fund threatened to cut off Argentina’s access to critical loans and to expel Argentina altogether if it didn’t clean up its data.
Economist Jonathan Andreas of Bluffton University said things haven’t gotten that bad in the United States — yet. But he said Trump’s firing of McEntarfer could lead down a slippery slope.
“Fortunately, I don’t think trust has fallen much yet, but the unjust firing was a bad omen and IF this signals a shift towards Argentinian/Venezuelan-style governance, then America will suffer those kinds of outcomes,” he wrote. “It hasn’t happened yet, but as the (Martin) Niemöller poem goes, ‘First they came for (the Bureau of Labor Statistics), and I did not speak out… Decreased trust in the basic macroeconomic functions of government depresses investment across the nation because investors hate uncertainty.”
This story was originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal and republished here with permission.
This article appears in Aug 20 – Sep 2, 2025.