Trump's nominee to oversee jobs, inflation data faces shower of
criticism
[August 13, 2025] By
CHRISTOPHER RUGABER and JOSH BOAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — The director of the agency that produces the nation's
jobs and inflation data is typically a mild-mannered technocrat, often
with extensive experience in statistical agencies, with little public
profile.
But like so much in President Donald Trump's second administration, this
time is different.
Trump has selected E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the conservative
Heritage Foundation, to be the next commissioner at the Labor
Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. Antoni's nomination was quickly
met with a cascade of criticism from other economists, from across the
political spectrum.
His selection threatens to bring a new level of politicization to what
for decades has been a nonpartisan agency widely accepted as a producer
of reliable measures of the nation's economic health. While many former
Labor Department officials say it it unlikely Antoni will be able to
distort or alter the data, particularly in the short run, he could
change the currently dry-as-dust way it is presented.
Antoni was nominated by Trump after the BLS released a jobs report Aug.
1 that showed that hiring had weakened in July and was much lower in May
and June than the agency had previously reported. Trump, without
evidence, charged that the data had been “rigged” for political reasons
and fired the then-BLS chair, Erika McEntarfer, much to the dismay of
many within the agency.
Antoni has been a vocal critic of the government’s jobs data in frequent
appearances on podcasts and cable TV. His partisan commentary is unusual
for someone who may end up leading the BLS.
For instance, on Aug. 4 — a week before he was nominated — Antoni said
in an interview on Fox News Digital that the Labor Department should
stop publishing the monthly jobs reports until its data collection
processes improve, and rely on quarterly data based on actual employment
filings with state unemployment offices.
The monthly employment reports are probably the closest-watched economic
data on Wall Street, and can frequently cause swings in stock prices.
When asked at Tuesday’s White House briefing whether the jobs report
would continue to be released, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the
administration hoped it would be.
“I believe that is the plan and that’s the hope,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt also defended Antoni's nomination, calling him an “economic
expert” who has testified before Congress and adding that, “the
president trusts him to lead this important department.”
Yet Antoni’s TV and podcast appearances have created more of a portrait
of a conservative ideologue, instead of a careful economist who
considers tradeoffs and prioritizes getting the math correct.
“There’s just nothing in his writing or his resume to suggest that he’s
qualified for the position, besides that he is always manipulating the
data to favor Trump in some way,” said Brian Albrecht, chief economist
at the International Center for Law and Economics.
Antoni wrongly claimed in the last year of Biden's presidency that the
economy had been in recession since 2022; called on the entire Federal
Reserve board to be fired for not earning a profit on its Treasury
securities holdings; and posted a chart on social media that conflated
timelines to suggest inflation was headed to 15%.
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 His argument that the U.S. was in a
recession rested on a vastly exaggerated measure of housing
inflation, based on newly-purchased home prices, to artificially
make the nation’s gross domestic product appear smaller than it was.
“This is actually maybe the worst Antoni content I’ve seen yet,”
Alan Cole of the center-right Tax Foundation said on social media,
referring to his recession claim.
On a 2024 podcast, Antoni wanted to sunset Social Security payments
for workers paying into the system, saying that “you’ll need a
generation of people who pay Social Security taxes but never
actually receive any of those benefits.” As head of the BLS, Antoni
would oversee the release of the consumer price index by which
Social Security payments are adjusted for inflation.
Many economists share, to some degree, Antoni's concerns that the
government's jobs data has flaws and is threatened by trends such as
declining response rates to its surveys. The drop has made the jobs
figures more volatile, though not necessarily less accurate over
time.
“The stock market moves clearly based on these job numbers, and so
people with skin in the game think it’s telling them something about
the future of their investments,” Albrecht said. “Could it be
improved? Absolutely.”
Katharine Abraham, an economist at the University of Maryland who
was BLS Commissioner under President Bill Clinton, said updating the
jobs report's methods would require at least some initial
investment.
The government could use more modern data sources, she said, such as
figures from payroll processing companies, and fill in gaps with
surveys.
“There’s an inconsistency between saying you want higher response
rates and you want to spend less money,” she said, referring to the
administration's proposals to cut BLS funding.
Still, Abraham and other former BLS commissioners don't think Antoni,
if confirmed, would be able to alter the figures. He could push for
changes in the monthly press release and seek to portray the numbers
in a more positive light.
William Beach, who was appointed BLS commissioner by Trump in his
first term and also served under Biden, said he is confident that
BLS procedures are strong enough to prevent political meddling. He
said he didn't see the figures himself until two days before
publication when he served as commissioner.
“The commissioner does not affect the numbers,’’ Beach said. “They
don’t collect the data. They don’t massage the data. They don’t
organize it."
Regarding the odds of rigging the numbers, Beach said, “I wouldn’t
put it at complete zero, but I’d put it pretty close to zero.’’
It took about six months after McEntarfer was nominated in July 2023
for her to be approved. Antoni will likely face stiff opposition
from Democrats, but that may not be enough to derail his
appointment.
Sen. Patty Murray, a senior Democrat from Washington, on Tuesday
slammed Antoni as “an unqualified right-wing extremist” and demanded
that the GOP chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions Committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, hold a
confirmation hearing for him.
___
Associated Press Staff Writers Paul Wiseman and Stephen Groves
contributed to this story.
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