August 1st, 2025.

Economists have been expressing concern about the accuracy of economic statistics coming out of the Trump administration for months.

Cuts to the staff at agencies that collect data have meant that the consumer price index

from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, contains far more estimates of values than it did

before the cuts. With that warning, today's jobs report packed a one-two punch. The numbers showed

that employers added only 73,000 jobs in July,

way below the 115,000 economists had predicted. The numbers also showed that the jobs

reports for May and June had significantly overestimated the new jobs added in those months.

The department revised May's original estimate of 144%. overestimated the new jobs added in those months.

The Department revised May's original estimate of 144,000, down to 19,000,

and June's original estimate of 14,000, down to just 14,000.

As Julian Berman of the Washington Post noted, that's a decrease of almost 90%. The numbers show that while the jobs numbers have looked good, in fact, the economy has been weakening for months.

Trump's high tariffs and the chaos surrounding them appear to have slowed growth almost immediately.

The only sector adding a lot of new jobs is health care, which is not as exposed to trade policy

as other sectors. In contrast, hiring and manufacturing fell to a nine-year low in May.

Predictably, Trump lashed out.

Although U.S. statistics have been widely seen as the nonpartisan gold standard,

Trump claimed that the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Dr. Erica McIntyre, had manipulated

the jobs report.

In my opinion, today's jobs numbers were rigged in order to make the Republicans and me look bad, he wrote. He fired her. Trump also insisted

the head of the Federal Reserve, his own appointee, Jerome Powell, should be put out to pasture.

Powell has steadfastly refused to lower interest rates to pump money into the economy, as Trump

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