After a July 2025 jobs report today revealed less labor participation and an increased unemployment rate, President Donald Trump announced the termination of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner.
Unemployment in the United States increased to 4.2 percent from 4.1 percent in June 2025, according to the latest BLS data, and labor force participation fell from 62.3 percent to 62.2 percent.
Former President Joe Biden appointed Dr. Erika McEntarfer to serve as the commissioner of the BLS in January 2024, as reported by Business Insider.
“We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes,” Trump shared on social media.
American economists expressed warning and concern over Trump firing McEntarfer and raising suspicions about BLS data.
“I worked very closely with Commissioner Beach, the prior BLS commissioner, who was appointed by Donald Trump, and then Dr. McEntarfer to understand the numbers and be able to share them, to be able to talk about them, to use them to analyze whether the policies that we were pursuing was actually benefiting the American people. This is just a typical move by someone who hates real facts because they tell the truth about how much damage he’s doing,” Julie Su, the former acting Secretary of Labor under Biden, told Business Insider.
Executive Director of Employ America Skanda Amarnath wrote on X that if nothing changes with BLS processes, the public will no longer trust the BLS commissioner now after termination following one bad jobs report.
“Firing the head of the BLS is five-alarm intentional harm to the integrity of U.S. economic data and the entire statistical system,” Peterson Institute for International Economics Senior Fellow Jed Kolko wrote on X. Kolko formerly served as Under Secretary for Economic Affairs at the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Deputy Commissioner William Wiatrowski will serve as Acting Commissioner while McEnterfer’s replacement is found.
As the BLS collects more monthly jobs data, revisions are often made to the numbers, however the BLS said July’s revisions were “larger than normal.” The economy added 73,000 jobs in July 2025, not the 106,000 estimated by the BLS. Revisions showed fewer jobs were created in May and June 2025 than the BLS first reported.
On Friday, Trump wrote that the jobs report was a “major mistake” and “The Economy is BOOMING under ‘TRUMP.'” Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer agreed “wholeheartedly” with Trump in a post on X when she said: “Our jobs numbers must be fair, accurate and never manipulated for political purposes.” According to Business Insider, the Department of Labor and the White House referred the news organization to her post instead of providing comment.
“Today’s jobs report flashes a bright red warning sign for our economy. Unemployment is up, job growth has slowed across nearly every sector, and revised figures show the past three months were the weakest period for jobs since COVID. At the same time, new inflation data shows prices are still climbing, leaving working families with less money in their pocket each month,” U.S. Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez of New York, Ranking Member of the House Small Business Committee, said in a statement Friday.
According to Velázquez, Trump is “doubling down on chaos” instead of address the cost-of-living crisis many Americans are struggling to financially afford. Trump is also pushing for more tariffs on trading partners that will further increase prices for Americans and small businesses.
“While the President claims his economic policy is focused on reviving manufacturing, the reality tells a different story — America lost 26,000 manufacturing jobs in May and June alone. These tariffs are not working, and the Administration needs to reassess rather than keep digging the hole deeper,” Velázquez said.
The Republicans’ ‘Big Ugly Bill’ will cut support working families rely on and hand more tax breaks to billionaires.
“Republicans are not building an economy where every day Americans can succeed. They are focused on supporting the wealthy, while everyone else gets left behind,” Velázquez said.
In 2019, BLS payroll numbers overstated employment by 500,000, according to Yale Budget Lab Director of Economics Ernie Tedeschi.
“Every economist who knows the fist thing about labor data knows this has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the challenges of real-time jobs estimation in the world’s biggest economy,” Tedeschi said. He added in another post that he “cannot overstate how damaging this is to U.S. credibility.”
Congressman Don Beyer of Virginia, who serves as Senior House Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee and is a member of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade. Most American job growth in the latest BLS data came in health care and social assistance, two areas that were targeted for major funding cuts by Trump and Republicans. Trump’s tariffs are dragging the U.S. economy down, Beyer said, yet the president announced new tariffs.
“Those of us who opposed Trump’s trade wars warned from the beginning that they would raise prices for the American people, hurt relationships with our allies, and damage small businesses with self-inflicted chaos and uncertainty. Now Trump’s tariffs are causing inflation to rise, economic growth slowed in the first half of 2025, and the job market – a primary source of strength and stability through fluctuations in the post-pandemic economy – is weakening sharply. Everything we warned would happen is in fact happening,” Beyer said.
Beyer said that Americans are so far not seeing a “golden age” and the promised benefits of tariffs, and the country is losing manufacturing jobs.
“It is becoming increasingly clear that there is no strategy here, only a determination to bully other countries – no matter how much it harms America,” Beyer said.
Bills by Democrats are prepared to stop the economic downfall, but Republicans are unwilling to break with Trump.
U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia is a member of the Senate Finance and Banking committees, and said the July 2025 jobs report was “deeply troubling,” but makes it plain that the American economy is faltering because of Trump’s “reckless policies.”
“Now the president is trying to cook the books by firing the nonpolitical career civil servant who oversees the data, because he wants to hide the truth of his failed policies from the American people,” Warner said.
Economists have warned for months that Trump’s trade war and erratic tariffs would harm businesses in America stifle investment and raise prices for families. While working Americans suffer, Trump’s budget bill gave more tax cuts to the wealthy, cut Medicaid funding, raised health care premiums and cut food assistance for the most food insecure.
“With each passing day, President Trump shows he is willing to sacrifice American workers, families, and now even the integrity of our economic data in order to cover up the consequences of his failures,” Warner said.
Firing the ump in the game does not change the game’s score, Warner said.
“Americans deserve to know the truth about the state of the Trump economy.”
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Rebecca Barnabi
