U.S. jobs data "very unreliable," top Trump econ adviser says

Catch up quick: On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported weak job growth in July, with historic downward revisions to the May and June numbers that suggested the labor market was all but flat in recent months.

• Hours later, Trump claimed — without any evidence — that the report was rigged, and he fired BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer.

What they're saying: "I don't think it was explained very well and I think that markets might be as much unsettled by the fact that the data are so noisy," Hassett told "Fox News Sunday."

• "So imagine if the revision in the data — so the correction of errors — is five times bigger than the number itself. Then that makes you wonder 'well can I believe this number at all?' And I think that that's actually something that needs to be fixed, it needs to be fixed fast," Hassett said.
• "I think that the president is right to call for new leadership. I think Erika is a terrific person, but I think that it's time for someone to get in there and fix this," Hassett said, arguing that the data never recovered from problems that began during the pandemic.
• "If the data aren't that good, then it's a real problem for the U.S. And right now the data are — have become very unreliable with these massive revisions over the last few years."

Zoom in: Hassett, in a subsequent interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," said Trump wanted his own people running BLS to achieve "more transparent and more reliable" data.

• "If there are big changes and big revisions — we expect more big revisions for the jobs data in September, for example — then we want to know why," he said.
• But pressed repeatedly for hard evidence that the data were rigged or manipulated for political reasons, Hassett would say only that the revisions proved the data were wrong.

The big picture: There is little precedent for the government's senior economic leaders openly questioning the fundamental quality of the nation's core macroeconomic data.

• It comes as international investors have just started regaining confidence in the U.S., following the emergence of a tariff-driven "Sell America" trade earlier this year.

The intrigue: Condemnation of Trump's move was swift, not just from Democrats, but from Republican lawmakers and economists.

• Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), ordinarily a strong Trump supporter, told The Guardian that firing McEntarfer was "kind of impetuous" and added "it's not the statistician's fault if the numbers are accurate and that they're not what the president had hoped for."

• GOP Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Thom Tillis (N.C.) also reportedly spoke out against the move.

William Beach, who was appointed BLS commissioner by Trump in his first term, said on CNN's "State of the Union" that "there's no way for" McEntarfer to rig the data, as Trump claimed last week.

• He added that the commissioner doesn't even see the final, fully calculated number until two days before its release and their job at that time is "to kind of do the edits on the text. So there's no hands-on at all for the commissioner."
• Beach also said that revisions to data are commonplace, since the initial jobs data is conducted like a survey and not all of the businesses turn their numbers in before the deadline.
• "BLS keeps the door open for two more months to get more information. So what you saw on Friday was the effect of trying to do a better job, getting more information," Beach said of the revisions for May and June in Friday's report.

The bottom line: Beach said Trump firing McEntarfer "undermines credibility in BLS."

• "Suppose that they get a new commissioner, and this person, male, female, are just the best people possible, right? And they do a bad number. Well everybody's going to think 'well it's not as bad as it probably really is,' because they're going to suspect political influence," Beach said.

What to watch: The next jobs report is in 33 days.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional comments from Kevin Hassett.