Why it matters that Trump fired data chief
More or Less: Behind the Stats
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 9 August 2025
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
On Friday 1st August the US Bureau of Labor Statistics put out their job report data for August. It included revisions to their estimates for the jobs created in May and June which stated there were 258,000 fewer jobs than they had previously estimated. This news was not received well by the White House. President Trump fired the head of the bureau, Erika McEntarfer, calling the numbers ‘phony, rigged, a scam’ and spreading conspiracy theories that McEntarfer had fudged the data. We speak to economist Michael Strain from the American Enterprise Institute, to understand why the revisions happened and the potential consequences of throwing doubt on one of the US’s most important statistical agencies. If you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at, email the team: [email protected]
Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Production Co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Sound mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Sam Bonham
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and thanks for downloading the more or less podcast. We're the program that disentangles |
| 0:04.9 | numerical claims in the news, life and in the social media posts of world leaders. And I'm |
| 0:11.0 | Lizzie McNeil. On Friday, the 1st of August, President Trump did something that sent shockwaves |
| 0:17.8 | around the United States statistical community. You're fired. |
| 0:22.8 | Yes, he channeled his ex-The apprentice days and fired the head of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, |
| 0:30.1 | Erica McIntarthur. |
| 0:32.1 | The Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, is a federal agency that produces information about the US labor market and consumer prices. |
| 0:40.8 | Now, a president hiring and firing people in and of itself is not shocking. |
| 0:46.3 | They do have the right to do that. |
| 0:48.3 | The problem lies in why McIntarfer was fired and what the president has said about the firing. |
| 0:54.3 | The numbers were phoning. The numbers were ridiculous. |
| 0:57.2 | So, what is going on and why does any of it matter? |
| 1:02.6 | Let's take you back to Friday the 1st of August. |
| 1:08.0 | Brand new jobs numbers just out. |
| 1:10.7 | You can see them behind me in July. |
| 1:12.6 | The U.S. added just 73,000 new jobs below expectations, the unemployment rate at 4.2%. |
| 1:19.6 | But the big news, really big news, major revisions for May in June, major downward revisions. Those months much, much worse than thought. |
| 1:31.4 | Well, on Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States released information about |
| 1:37.3 | the labor market for July and for May and for June. And the number of net new jobs added in those months looked relatively |
| 1:47.9 | weak. I'm Michael Strain. I'm an economist with the American Enterprise Institute and a professor |
| 1:53.1 | at Georgetown. The May and June figures were revised downward by about a quarter million. |
| 1:58.7 | If you looked at the data for May, June, and July together, |
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