McEntarfer was selected to the post on a nonpartisan basis in January 2024 after being nominated by former President Joe Biden in 2023.
Irked by a steep downward revision to the jobs data, U.S. President Donald Trump recommended the firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, and on Sunday, he doubled down on his criticism of her.
Taking to his Truth Social account, Trump pointed out a precedent. “[The] Head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics did the same thing just before the Presidential Election, when she lifted the numbers for jobs to an all-time high,” he said.
“I then won the Election, anyway, and she readjusted the numbers downward, calling it a mistake, of almost one million jobs,” he added.
“A SCAM! She did it again, with another massive ‘correction,’ and got FIRED! She had the biggest miscalculations in over 50 years,” the president said.
Trump was referring to the annual revision to the job numbers for the year ending March 2024, released a year back, following his return to the White House, which showed that the economy added 818,000 fewer jobs than was reported earlier.
Incidentally, McEntarfer was selected to the post on a nonpartisan basis in January 2024 after being nominated by former President Joe Biden in 2023.
U.S. stock futures held up late Sunday amid developments, following a sharp decline in the major averages on Friday in response to the jobs data.
For the year, the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks the Nasdaq 100 Index, remains up 8.63%, while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) has gained 6.71%.
The SPY and QQQQ were among the top five most active equity tickers on Stocktwits late Sunday.
On Friday, following the release of the jobs report, Trump said in a post that “I was just informed that our Country’s ‘Jobs Numbers’ are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala’s chances of Victory.”
“I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY.” On Saturday, he alleged the numbers were rigged to make “the Republicans and ME, look bad.”
A Trump administration official on Sunday backed the president’s decision to fire McEntarfer. While speaking to NBC’s Meet The Press, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said, “What we need is a fresh set of eyes over the BLS.”
“The bottom line is that there were people involved in creating these numbers,” the White House economic adviser said, adding that “if I were running the BLS and I had a number that was a huge, politically important revision, the biggest since 1968 actually … then I would have a really long report explaining exactly what happened. And we didn’t get that.”
The controversy surrounding the revision to the job numbers and the resignation by Federal Reserve Governor Adriana Kugler, whose term was set to expire in January, provided an opportunity for Trump to renew his attacks on Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
“‘Too Late’ Powell should resign, just like Adriana Kugler, a Biden Appointee, resigned. She knew he was doing the wrong thing on Interest Rates. He should resign, also!” Trump said in a separate post.
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