Trump will delay Chinese tariffs for 90 days as negotiations continue
President Donald Trump issued an executive order by closing 30% tariffs on goods imported from China until November.
WASHINGTON – The candidate for President Donald Trump’s candidate to become the new Director of Labor Statistics has recently proposed that agents will halt monthly employment reports until the methodology used to calculate numbers changes.
Ej Antoni, an economist at the Heritage Foundation who tapped Trump on August 11, proposed the idea in an August 4 interview with Fox News Digital on behalf of the Director of Labor Statistics, which he fired. He questioned the agency’s methodology and economic assumptions due to recent employment revisions, calling it “a serious issue that needs to be fixed immediately.”
“Until now, BLS will need to suspend publishing monthly job reports, but while more accurate, not timely, they will need to continue to publish quarterly data,” Antoni said. “Primary decision makers from Wall Street to DC rely on these numbers, and a lack of confidence in the data has widespread results.”
If confirmed by the Senate, Antoni denounced Trump without evidence to manipulate “political purpose” data after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in July that he disappointed 73,000 jobs on behalf of former President Joe Biden’s appointment on August 1, sacked Trump without evidence to manipulate “political purpose” data. Trump also complained about the revision, which reduced employment profits in May and June by around 258,000, depicting a labor market that was far weaker than Trump promoted.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was “plan and hope” for BLS to continue releasing monthly job reports. However, when asked at an August 12 briefing about Antoni’s remarks, she did not rule out agencies that temporarily suspend monthly employment reports.
“I think he came up with the idea that he would probably pause until they could get the data and methodology in turn,” she said. “The president wants to make sure BLS is delivering accurate and honest data that Americans can trust.”
Employment reports rely heavily on investors, businesses, government employees and workers to make important decisions as they are widely considered to be the most timely and comprehensive snapshot of the US economy and labor market.
According to Goldman Sachs’ Unrasis, the August 1 revisions in May and June marked the largest two-month revision outside the recession.
Each month, BLS reads first the previous month’s job profits and corrects the two-month figures based on follow-up surveys.
To come up with monthly employment growth estimates, agents look into 631,000 employment sites run by 121,000 companies and government agencies across the country. The department will revise the data twice as many employers either fail to respond to the initial survey or change the factors officials use to adjust the numbers seasonally.
Most economic forecasters say this year’s major revisions have revealed a gap between surprisingly resilient employment improvements, such as weak gross domestic product, and other economic indicators this year.
Contribution: Paul Davidson of USA Today
Reach Joey Garrison with X @joeygarrison.
