The hunt for a new BLS head is on. 
Help Wanted
The Wall Street Journal reports a $195,000 Search Is Underway for an economist able to walk a political minefield.
President Trump says he plans to announce a new commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the coming days after he fired Erika McEntarfer from the job hours after the release of a dismal July jobs report Friday. The president “wants his own people there,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
Being a Trump loyalist is a departure from the traditional job description. Carroll Wright, the country’s first BLS commissioner, described the agency’s role in 1904 as “the fearless publication of the facts.” The job, which pays a minimum of $195,000 a year, has typically gone to a labor economist with prior experience in government or academia. Most commissioners have been accomplished statisticians and scholars themselves.
The BLS commissioner’s biggest responsibility? Oversee the gathering of data that corporations, investors and policymakers rely on to inform decisions large and small. That includes some of the most closely watched economic indicators, such as federal and state unemployment rates, job creation and inflation.
The commissioner’s interaction with the president is indirect: The BLS shares important data with the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers a day before the information is released to the public. The Council then writes a memo for the president to review. [So no, the Fed did not have the jobs report when its meeting was Wednesday with the job report two days later on Friday].
“All commissioners have to learn that when they’re asked questions about policy, frankly, they don’t answer them,” said Keith Hall, who was appointed commissioner by George W. Bush and served most of his term under Obama.
The BLS commissioner’s executive level is determined by Congress, and the pay rate for that level is published by the Office of Personnel Management. In 2024, that base pay was set by executive order at $195,200.
“There’s a big difference in Washington that I didn’t appreciate before I got there between political appointees of the president, who are in charge of advancing the president’s policy agenda, and the term appointees who are intended to be subject matter experts in charge of scientific and technical operations,” said Erica Groshen, who served as BLS commissioner during President Barack Obama’s second term.
Groshen’s advice to the next commissioner? “Do everything you can to show that the traditional BLS culture is preserved, one that values objectivity and accuracy above all else. And walk in there expecting to trust the civil servants who have served the country so well.”
Groshen’s Advice Translated
Expect to be fired.
A competent messenger will not change the news or make political statements.
However, Trump does not want the news unless it’s good.
Trump Says the Data Was Rigged
Competing Rigging Theories
- Somehow with all this rigging going on, for many months, with hundreds of BLS personal collecting data, everyone of them is in on the scam. They take orders from the man at the top, and 100 percent of them are Biden loyalist cheats, so no one will yap.
- Trump, as usual, blames anyone but himself.
On August 2, I asked Did Trump Fire the BLS Head for Cause, Being the Messenger, or Something Else?
“The process of obtaining the numbers is decentralized by design to avoid opportunities for interference.”
The answer of course is being the messenger.
Please note the above sentence does not imply all is well at the BLS.
I discussed many major issues in the above link. Serious flaws include the Birth-Death model, sampling errors, and QCEW numbers that should be seasonally adjusted but aren’t.
There are also staff issues that DOGE made worse.
What’s the Mission?
If the new BLS chief’s primary mission is to fix the flaws, is given the resources to do so, and will be told to operate independently, then there’s a good case for a change (just not the way Trump went about doing it).
If the mission is to artificially improve or lie about the numbers or make Bidenesque excuses for the numbers, then change was not warranted in any sense.
Expect This to Backfire on Trump
It will be amusing to see how fast Trump replaces the BLS chief.
But that won’t improve the numbers. Nor will it improve trust.
Hoot of the Day
Trump says the economy is doing fine and the job weakness is rigged.
But if the weakness is rigged, then what’s the case for a Fed rate cut?
Price data isn’t weakening,
The crying baby wants it both ways. Jobs are rigged by the BLS to look weak, but they are really strong. Yet, too-late Powell should be cutting. What a hoot.
How many caught this bit of hypocritical nonsense?
Related Posts
July 31, 2025: No Improvement in the Fed’s Preferred Measure of Inflation for 8 Months
Core PCE is up 2.8 percent from a year ago, no change in 8 months.
The PCE is a BEA price measure, not BLS.
August 1, 2025: Payroll Disaster, Jobs Rise 73,000 but Massive Negative Revisions
Monthly Revisions
- The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for May was revised down by 125,000, from +144,000 to +19,000
- The change for June was revised down by 133,000, from +147,000 to +14,000.
- With these revisions, employment in May and June combined is 258,000 lower than previously reported.
August 5, 2025: ISM Services Prices Increase 98 Straight Months, Highest Since Oct 2022
The services index is barely above contraction. Prices are another matter.
If Trump is correct, the amazing conclusion is that the ISM must be in cohoots with the BLS and BEA in rigging all the data.
The CPI, PCE, Jobs reports, and the ISM are all rigged!
And not a soul has stepped forward to disclose how. Wow.
Don’t expect anything to change. Its garbage in garbage out. Respondents are voluntary and some are lackadaisical since they don’t get paid for the service. I worked there years ago, and the same problems were there in the 70’s. Blaming the commissioner is ridiculous. It’s also ridiculous to think these statistics are reliable.
Meh.
ALL elites hate, hate, HATE two things:
Not being taken as the VerySeriousPersons they KNOW they are and laughed at…
and…DISLOYALTY
That is not a 200k/year job. Sorry.
But no one is worried about the new police powers given to ICE and BP? Or how NG were sent into Ca to protect fire property and NYC for subway protection.
Or how that “BIG BALLS” DOGE guy story is so fake. Picture of shirt off blood on the body BUT no smearing from when the shirt came off.
Or how judges get arrested and TACO or BIGOV can declare anyone a terrorist at will.
Or the fact there is a 100 mile security corridor around the US border covering most of the US population where BP can detain anyone they suspect of being shady.
Creeping police state with many outliers “nudging” us toward acceptance.
You know like the airport feelup.
Biden legally and legitimately using an autopen for routine business is seen as a far worse national crisis by conservatives than Trump demanding a ZIRP Monkey for his next Fed Chair. I remember when the GOP had morally redeemable standards.
Now they’re taking chunks out of the constitution:
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/
Sections 9 and 10 are missing from Article one.
The missing sections are here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_States_Constitution
This for real. When they normalize snatching brown people, ICE is coming for you and yours.
Arm yourselves. Make a plan with your neighbors. This is happening.
I’ve been checking that page (the cached page from Sep 2024 shows 9 and 10). A friend said 9-12 were back up. She wouldn’t pull my leg. I went there, it was gone again. I clicked refresh they were there.
This is not some innocent tech glitch, not when it involves slavery/movement of brown people and enumerating powers to Feds over states. Two holy grails for Trump.
GIRD YER LOINZ
They removed the bit that has Habeus Corpus in it. They want to be able to arrest and imprison anybody that opposes them.
The message is “Serve the child rapist, or we’ll stuff you in a FEMA camp with no charges whatsoever”. It could not be more clear.
Supporters of the cheeto pedo are applauding this. They are treasonous, perverted scum, and should be dealt with as such.
…the pay Is $195,000…
bonuses for meeting “the” number
Trump will tell him to donate his salary “as Trump so generously does with his for the benefit of Joe Hard Hat”
Old Soviet Joke:
The communist party was interviewing candidates for an important position.
They asked the first candidate “how much is 2+2?”. “4” was the answer he gave.
They asked the second candidate “how much is 2+2?”. He also answered “4”.
They asked the third candidate “how much is 2+2?”. “How much do you want it to be?” was the answer.
The third candidate got the job.
exactly. While I think Trump should have demoted her quietly(assuming that is possible) I am laughing at Mikes comment because 95% of government employees are swamp creatures that will do anything for democrats so I could really care less about this woman. And I am sure she will get a job in some liberal think tank for twice the pay
Why demote her? Do you actually believe it was possible for her and a group of roughly 40 diverse political minds to engage in a conspiracy to fake the numbers? If not, what cause should he have demoted her for? Not being male?
Fake the numbers? Didn’t Biden do that for 4 years? Did they not right down the 850, something thousand jobs that were supposedly created under Biden??
And I am not just a Trump homer, he can be a complete a hole too. And they have been lying about job creations for 40 years so thats bi partisan lying.
I just happen to think Trump as bad as he can be is the best of the worst.
You liberal democrats are living in a time warp. This aint your dads or granddads democratic party
They should be required to be registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act because they certainly do no represent the American people
Please, even you don’t believe the bit about 95% swamp creatures. Most government workers simply want to do a good job just like anyone else. In particular, the BLS evidently did their job transparantly as Mish explained. The swamp is trump firing someone for refusing to lie on his behalf.
Define most LOL? More than 50% ? maybe…
Let’s all remember that the GOVERNMENT (SEC) allows for “Non-GAAP” accounting results to drive HEADLINES on CNBC.
and gross revenues……..
Welcome to Italy 1925
Gotta wonder about all Government Econ stats. Their methods are tried and “true.”
Not now that Trump has made it clear that honestly conflicting with his opinions and agenda will be met with the ban hammer
So ridiculous. if the jobs report was rigged why didn’t BLS rig the original figures that Trump boasted about, instead of what you have to believe to believe Trump: that BLS issued great numbers for April and May but then rigged massive negative revisions. it’s much easier and less suspicious to have rigged the initial numbers.
Not sure if people in the US know Black Adder but this all reminds me of the King receiving bad news: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWsKhMQ41lY
Quality of clip not great, but you get the idea.
Job requirement?
Long Brown Nose…
<
Pedophile? An advantage, but not a requirement.
Tolerance for pedophile as president is a requirement.
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If he gives good numbers the fed wont have a reason to lower rates.
Don’t agree with Mish that this firing won’t affect the accuracy of future reports. Your hypothesis is that there are too many people involved so it would be impossible to fake.
Probably correct in the current setup. However Project 2025 explicitly states a desire to merge statistics bureaus in order to bring them under political control.
With the talk that the BLS is broken, it would be easy to suggest fixing things by only publishing top level data. Only a few people would have access to this data whilst keeping the local figires hidden (with some made up excuse about national security, ensuring accuracy etc.).
That would be an explicit active play. The inactive play is simply to worry people about bad news getting them fired even at a local level. Can’t believe that won’t skew statistics.
All part of the US frog being boiled (media influence, judicial interference, statistics manipulation). At what point does the public say enough is enough – no evidence so far that it ever will.
it’s not that fixing BLS or insulating it fro political influence these aren’t good ideas in the abstract, but no one with IQ above 60 can believe Trump actually wants less control over things while he’s in charge. He wants more control. all his appointments have had one overriding requirement: they must be die hard loyalists to Trump, ready to backup whatever nonsense he says or wants
From watching some of the Senate appointment hearings under Biden, there were a number of leftist ideologues being appointed. Die hard loyalists.
Apparently, it was Rosenberg who recommended Wray to replace corrupt Comey. Wray was in charge during the raid on Maralago,but no raid on Biden, over secret documents. Also, the traditional Catholics as terrorists memo, occurred under Wray, and he stated to congress he didn’t know whether Trump was struck by a bullet, when the FBI had already confirmed it. After a 4 year coup in the first term, little wonder that Trump wants loyalists.
Sounds like the beginning of a fascism to me………
Fascism has been here for a while ~ See Citizens United and Trumps first nightmare term and the election denial insurrection he incited.
There was no insurrection, nor did Trump incite one. As far as i can tell, the Capitol Police fired on the protestors without warning, precipitating what followed. If you are looking for incitement, the police provided it. The 4 year coup by democrats, against Trump, was a nightmare of Democrat political corruption.
Democrat Andreesen switched to Trump, when Biden told him that only 3 or 4 companies were going to be allowed to be involved in AI and those controlled by the government.
Look -these idiots stormed the capital and destroyed property
All of those wo did that belong in jail period. Period.
Stop making excuses for this shit.
For those who did no more than watch or be there, OK pardons, the rest should still be in jail, or shot dead for breaking in .
But OK it was not an “insurrection”
Yes there were idiots that stormed capital & destroyed property.
But what about the police officer that shot & killed Ashli Babbit? No charges? She was not near him nor a threat to him. And no charges?
No charges for the police officers that severely beat Victoria White.
Curious if anyone including you Mike even know who Victoria White is?
The told her to back off or get shot. She continued to try to force the door, and they shot her.
There was nothing behind that door she needed, and she was trespassing and screaming like a goddamn lunatic.
What would you have had them do? Give her a hug
and a blankie?
She f*cked around, and she found out, and you want police persecuted for doing their job… yet you want a known child rapist to keep his.
You are trash.
I am trash LOL. Go _uck yourself
Care to comment on Victoria White?
Of course there was an insurrection. Anyone watching tv could see it happening live. The police provoked people to storm and enter the capitol? Of course not: Donald “fight fight fight” Trump did the provocation. Again, live on tv.
Whoever is the candidate, he/she should ask what is the punishment for producing numbers that the Great Leader doesn’t like? Is it dismissal or imprisonment or something worse?
Me vets the dollar is toast as this becomes a more shady market, stats, and economy. Takes time, but we’ll find when things weaken for the fist time we have no foreign backstop investors. Ergo, keeps collapsing.
Speaking of, I keep saying (UNLESS Trump can TRULEY rig the numbers) CPI is due for some major rises. Of not, people like me keep paying ridiculously higher prices (I can’t believe some hikes) and Gov data. So we all walk away as best we can.
Hey, I can do that, leaning on one of Groucho Marx’s famous quotes:
“These are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others”
Trump or one of his turnips will send the new person the numbers each month
I know. Just like Biden’s lemmings did.
Under Biden the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting CEO was paid $524,000 a year.
Another pedo supporter. Go chase yourself.
You sound like such a great and positive person!
Something about the president raping children makes me ornery.
You support a child rapist. You disgust me.
Seems like you just like to call people names. I just might agree with you.
I see where you feel things are unfair, now I can see why your so angry.
Wow. Pointing out the PBS CEO’s outrageous salary makes you pedophile.
You have a very warped sense of reality.
Go see a Dr.
Parroting talking points of a pedo administration makes you a pedo supporter. Full stop.
Own it. Nobody else is buying your excuses.
Own what? Trump is a Pedo? Okay. Whatever.
Parroting talking points.
Excuses?
I can see where you feel that things seem so unfair, now I can see why your so angry.
But that person didn’t work directly for the US government, which has limits on what it is allowed to pay people. D’oh.
And some commenters here get mad when you call them out for being dumb but that’s exactly what it is because of the endless contradiction with this administration.
Tariffs don’t cause inflation despite the uptick in inflation recently but if tariffs don’t cause inflation then why not set them all at 100% and collect the revenue?
The border is “secure” yet we still need to build a wall for some reason, why if the border is secure? And why are deportation numbers so low if 20 million are being deported? And why have ICE gestapo out hunting if clemency is being worked out?
One thing is very clear now though, everyone is on their own with regards to economic data and economic reality. Everything will now really be rigged and undependable because that’s how this admin rolls. It will take a decade to return to normalcy and no business can properly plan or forecast anything now.
Got exit strategy?
It was my experience during the Vietnam War, in which I served, that the government could not be trusted. I have remained steadfast in that belief for six decades.
I’m sorry for your service.
This article explains how bad the commissioner’s figures were. If she didn’t do it on purpose, then major revisions, adjustments, etc. need to be done. Reality is, this is a feature not a bug.
https://link.breitbart.com/view/5d13e215fc942d626ce65d9eoefg5.58tt/c153d7c6
Standard Breitbart flogging conspiracy theories.
Let’s see.
The Pentagon has a deep state that needs to be rooted out.
The DOJ has a deep state that needs to be rooted out.
The FBI has a deep state that needs rooted out.
The DNI has a deep state that needs to be rooted out.
The CIA has a deep state that needs to be rooted out.
The State Dept has a deep state that needs to be rooted out.
The GAO has a deep state that needs to be rooted out.
Congress most certainly has a deep state that needs to be rooted out.
And the mother of them all, the FED has a deep state that needs to be rooted out.
Fortunately, USAID appears to have been rooted out.
So I’m going to laugh my you know what off, if / when this new Trump loyalist starts to uncover all sorts of shady things the BLS has been doing. And I’m not saying all of the “potential” things to be uncovered are meant to kneecap Trump. Most of it might just be found to harken abject incompetence.
But who in their right mind thinks the BLS is the lone federal bureaucracy that’s been able to buck the canary in the coal mine?
Ah, the deep State conspiracy theories. It’s funny how people believe that government is both very ineffectieve AND driving very complex conspiracies with great effectiveness at the same time. Time to get out of the internet echo box it seems.
Well, as an example, the Russia Hoax was effective until it wasn’t.
Hopefully, your boys Obama & Biden will go to jail.
And in all seriousness, the Deep State inside of these agencies doesn’t have to be 98% of the people or even 50%. Probably 5% in the key positions can do very effective, Deep State undermining.
Again, just wait for the conservatives to be in power for the next 12 years and see how much Dems become believers in the Deep State. I readily admit it can cut both ways.
This would be funny in another world…
But it’s not in this one…
>
Two weeks from now: “I nominated Herschel Walker because he’s big, fast, very very smart, and he speaks good English. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Dinner with Stalin.
Mish, I know this clicks, but can you discuss the country by country trade deals? I see one was agreed to with Malaysia. Not a sexy topic, but it’s relevant.
Thanks But there are no deals – signed and binding
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/malaysia-agrees-boost-tech-lng-purchases-us-part-trade-deal-2025-08-04/
I see Malesia agree to buy more LNG and so did the EU
It’s more than the US exports and in the case of the EU, more than total EU needs
It’s all nonsense
is anything ever binding? when we’ve done ‘deals’ before, have they been binding? who has kept track?
if it’s all nonesense, when did the nonsense start? who has been paid to do nonsense? I was in Malaysia in July. No US cars. I asked myself, how does this work?
Shhh… calm down. Stupid is supposed to hurt.
“If Trump is correct”, That is a non starter right there. Trump 98% of the time is flat out lying, embellishing, or exaggerating to a degree the world has never seen before,
There has been a 1500% reduction in truthfulness…
but Trump never promised us a rose garden…
wouldn’t become a beautiful white concrete slab.
Please show us the 2% of truth!
can the new hire do a 812,000 readjustment prior to an election? If the shoe had been on the other foot, the NYT would have put five people on it, and Chuck Shumer would would have been calling for revolution.
Mish, so that I can better understand your view, let me know this: When you go to a local store, is 70 percent behind glass, and you have to ask to get a tube of toothpaste, and dental floss sticks? That’s standard in any large politically blue metropolitan area. Have you managed to stay way out, beyond that? Like Dean Baker.
Is that enough pay to be a Trump loyalist?
They are cheap whores, just like that.
Depends on how long till they’re chucked under the pedobus with the rest.
The job requirement that I read was “chief lackey.”