Trump firing of statistics chief puts US data credibility at risk, experts warn | Trump administration

Donald Trump’s dismissal of the chief of the main agency to produce employment figures is likely to propel the United States into the same category as notorious countries to “cook books” such as Argentina and Greece, experts warned.

Last Friday, Donald Trump dismissed Erika Mcentarfer, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), after having accused his agency of “fake” the latest employment figures to “political ends”, which showed that the American economy adding a job below it in July.

The BLS, the official source of the US government for labor statistics since 1884, has also revised the estimates of the new positions created in May and June by 258,000 combined.

Trump has provided no evidence of his accusations against Mcentarfer, which he strengthened in social networks on Monday, calling for the latest reports of the “rigged” and concocted office.

But its decision endangers the tradition of the United States of impartial and reliable statistical collection on which the country’s economic and international reputation depends, said specialists in the Guardian.

Erica Groshen, the predecessor of MCENTERFER as a BLS commissioner at the presidency of Barack Obama, warned earlier this year that a change in imminent civil rule which claimed last Friday dismissal could inaugurate an “politicization” of the president’s agenda incumbent from the government.

It raised the spectrum of Greece and Argentina, where official statistics have become discredited due to the distortion of the government’s inspired figures.

The International Monetary Fund has ceased to accept the inflation figures of the Argentinian government in 2013 after the officials deliberately underestimated the rate of the previous six years.

After threatening Argentina – historically one of the largest IMF borrowers – with expulsion, the organization did not give it another loan in 2018.

In the case of Greece, government statisticians have been accused of having inflation and the outbreak of budget deficits “disappear” in the 1990s, because the country was looking for respectable figures that would make it possible to qualify for the single European currency, the euro.

Greece then joined the currency, but at an exorbitant long -term price. The 2008 global financial accident plunged its economy into a profound recession, and the government was forced to accept reunification of several billion dollars from the IMF and the European Union – at the cost of painful social services reductions.

Andreas Georgiou, who became head of the main Statistics Agency of Greece during the crisis, was even prosecuted after discovering that the authorities have considerably underestimated budget deficits for years.

The two countries have experienced serious political reactions.

In Argentina, after two other IMF loans failed to stabilize his economy, Javier Milei, a populist economist and ally of Trump, was elected in 2023 promising to take a chainsaw at the bureaucracy in power and many public services.

In Greece, a succession of left and right governments took up its duties as part of an increase in support for radical and populist parties, giving birth to the health concerns of the country’s democracy.

Speaking to The Guardian, Groshen warned against comparable scenarios following a change of rule launched by the White House management office in April.

“The leaders of the Bureau of Labor Statistics may be dismissed for having published or planned to release jobs or inflation statistics that are unfavorable to the president’s political program,” she wrote in an information document.

The revision changed the category of around 50,000 permanent officials to the status of “politics / career”, which facilitates their withdrawal.

Originally deposited in April to authorize 30 days for comments, he gave agencies the right “to quickly withdraw career employees in posts of influence of policies for poor performance or poor conduct, such as corruption or to inject partisanry in the exercise of their official functions”.

The precise roles of the affected officials were not defined, but Groshen stressed that, if it was implemented, the president would determine who would be reclassified.

The change stems from a decree that Trump issued during his first day at the White House on January 20. He said that the power of civil servants “influenced by policies” is “delegated by the president, and they must be responsible for the president”.

Groshen, now specializing in government statistics at Cornell University, said that the status of civil servants would allow the government to more easily falsify the figures it did not like.

“There are a certain number of changes to the public service which greatly facilitate the administration to interfere with the activities of the statistical agencies and which worries me,” she said.

Under an increased threat of withdrawal, officials of federal statistics organizations “could also face pressure to modify methodologies or reveal prior information,” she wrote.

“By facilitating the abolition of employees if a president determines that they interfere with his policies, this increases the potential of passivity or political loyalty to be prioritized on expertise and experience.”