President
Trump had the legal authority to fire Biden appointee Erika McEntarfer; however, no other presidents have taken the risk of potentially damaging the credibility of the agency in charge of measuring the health of the US labor market. Even the implication that BLS data may be influenced by partisanship could have disastrous effects on the US’ standing internationally, attorneys say.
The public’s trust in the numerous market-moving wage, inflation, workplace injury, and other economic reports produced by the DOL is critical to ensuring the US is taken seriously on the global stage and investors’ decisions are based in reality.
“When leaders of other nations have politicized economic data, it has destroyed public trust in all official statistics and in government science,” former BLS commissioners William Beach and Erica L. Groshen as well as economist Paul Schroeder said in a statement.
The group cautioned that Trump’s termination of McEntarfer before the end of her 4-year-term was “without merit” and undermines the “gold standard” federal economic statistics that are key to informing the everyday economic choices made by businesses, workers, and lawmakers.
The monthly labor market data produced by the BLS “are important, because it’s one of the numbers that the money guys and gals up in Wall Street watch,” said Daniel Meyer, a partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC, who represents federal employees. “If we lose credibility on our economic data, that means we’re going to lose credibility with our overseas investors.”
The firings underscore the broad power Trump is willing to wield over the executive branch. He has fired officials traditionally seen as nonpartisan or independent, including every inspector general across 17 federal agencies, as well as leaders at the Federal Labor Relations Authority, Office of Special Counsel, and National Labor Relations Board, among others.
Trump said he would announce a new BLS commissioner in coming days. Conservative Steve Bannon, who advised the president during his first term, recently backed Heritage Foundation chief economist EJ Antoni for the role.
Implied Bias
The BLS has been under strain in recent years. The agency, like others, is under a hiring freeze after battling tightening budgets and staffing constraints and has seen response rates to its surveys drop.
While terminating McEntarfer may not be illegal, “it doesn’t mean it’s wise,” added Peter Bonner a former associate director at the Office of Personnel Management. The “independent” status of statistical agencies exists to produce objective advice, counsel, and research to the government and to the American public “so they can make good decisions,” he said.
“Can I depend on the information that I’ve been able to lean on and trust as objective sources of fact and truth when the person who brings forth those objective facts gets fired for it?” he asked.
The George W. Bush administration replaced its Bureau of Justice Statistics director after a report included racial profiling statistics, according to Jonathan Auerbach, an assistant professor at George Mason University, who has researched the autonomy of federal statistical agencies.
“The issue is that the removal violates a cultural norm in which political officials do not interfere with statistical data collection and reporting—for example, by retaliating against the agency or leadership that produced a report,” he said. “The system is designed to balance autonomy with accountability,” he added, but “it is not Trump-proof.”
The Trump administration argues McEntarfer was fired to preserve the integrity of the BLS.
The White House said in a statement that McEntarfer “eroded public trust” in the BLS, pointing to several large-scale revisions to the data released since she took over the agency. A DOL official also cast the blame on McEntarfer, saying she failed to work with agency leaders to correct declining response rates and that the administration often learned about challenges at the agency through the media, rather than from the commissioner directly.
The monthly jobs report is based off of data collected from two surveys of businesses and households during the second week of the month. The BLS issues updates to the data when it receives additional reports from establishments or government agencies, a common practice that has spanned numerous administrations.
Limited Protections
Trump announced in a Truth Social Post that he had directed his team to fire McEntarfer hours after the monthly jobs report released on Friday showed disappointing gains in July and revised the last two months reports down by 258,000 jobs.
The White House listed a series of “inaccuracies and incompetence” by McEntarfer. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer quickly issued a statement in support of the president’s move, saying that the monthly jobs numbers “must be fair, accurate, and never manipulated for political purposes.”
BLS Commissioners are political, non-career appointees, giving them few, if any legal avenues to challenge or appeal a firing. Unlike career federal employees, political appointees cannot appeal their removal to the Merit Systems Protection Bureau. And within its founding statute, there is an explicit removal provision for the commissioner of BLS, without any clear exceptions, leaving McEntarfer with little recourse.
She may try to fight her termination under “for cause” theories deployed in other cases, like by former US Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger, according to Meyer. He tried to challenge his firing by Trump earlier this year, but eventually withdrew his appeal. Others involving terminations at the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protections Bureau have so far been unsuccessful.
“Sometimes there’s language that if you can get into federal district court, it may be worth trying to fight it,” Meyer said. “The challenge is, this is running up against the separation of powers doctrine.”
The higher up you go in seniority in federal positions, “the less protections exist,” Meyer added.
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