Former Commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics William Beach criticizes President Trump for accusing the bureau of manipulating data for political purposes and what it could mean for American trust in the agency.

Washington

Bill Beach, the previous Commissioner of Labor Statistics, has spoken out against former President Trump's decision to fire the current BLS Commissioner over allegations of manipulating jobs data. Beach emphasized that the BLS Commissioner has no direct role in collecting or altering employment numbers, and only reviews finalized data shortly before publication. He explained that revisions to job reports are a standard part of the process, reflecting updated information from businesses, and that the agency's accuracy has improved over the years.

Beach warned that removing the commissioner for political reasons undermines public trust in the BLS and its data. He maintained confidence in the professionalism and dedication of BLS staff, stating that the agency remains a global standard for statistical reliability. Beach also noted that while the position is a political appointment, the statistical system should serve the public interest and reflect national priorities.

Former BLS chief slams Trump for firing his successor over jobs report

Joining me now is the previous Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Bill Beach. He was nominated by President Trump during his first term. Sir, thanks so much for joining us today. It's really great to be here. Thank you. Can you explain to us, the President said that the BLS Commissioner rigged these numbers. What do you think? There's no way for that to happen. The Commissioner doesn't do anything to collect the numbers. The Commissioner doesn't see the numbers until Wednesday before they're published. By the time the Commissioner sees the numbers, they're all prepared, they're locked into the computer system. The only thing the Commissioner does on Wednesday is to kind of do the edits on the text. So there's no hands-on at all for the Commissioner. I was Commissioner, and I was sometimes locked out of the process of actually, you know, where the people were working in the building. So there's no way for doing that. What I think really upset the President on Friday were the revisions to May and June. Big revisions. But that's because, like, every time we publish on Friday, there are revisions to the previous two months. This is a survey, and a survey has sample returns. You know, people have done surveys, you know, answer your phone. It's basically like a poll. Yeah, it's like a poll. Not everybody in the country is asked the question, are you working, are you looking for work? Just a handful. And businesses, about 600,000 businesses, well, they don't all get their returns in on time. I would like them all to come in on time, but BLS keeps the door open for two more months to get more information. So what you saw on Friday was the effect of trying to do a better job getting more information. And let me just end with this. Studies show that BLS is getting a, doing a better job now than they did 20 years ago, 20 and 30 years ago, in estimating the first number. So even though it's revised two more times, that 73,000 will be revised two more times, and that's, they're more accurate now than they were 30 years ago. So I said groundless. I don't think there's any grounds at all for this, for this firing, and it really hurts the statistical system. It undermines credibility in BLS. Suppose that they get a new commissioner, and this person, male or female, are just the best people possible, right? And they do a bad number. Well, everybody's going to think, well, it's not as bad as it probably really is, because they're going to suspect political influence. So this is, this is damaging. This is not what we need to have. So a couple of follow-ups for you, but let's start on the revisions piece. One of the things that the president posted about, he says this, this is the same Bureau of Labor Statistics that overstated the jobs growth in March 2004 by approximately 818,000 jobs, and then again right before the presidential election. He's talking about the overall year in that first bigger number, right? Does he have any point here when he says that, well, things looked politically better for my opponent back at the time than they actually were? Well, I don't think the timing is right, even if that were a good argument. The first revisions were announced, the preliminary estimates were announced in August. And in August, right in the middle of the campaign, the Democratic candidate was faced with much fewer job growth than expected. I suspect the candidate Harris would have liked to have run on 818,000 more jobs in the economy. And then the final revision came out as 600,000. And here's another thing. We always revise, every year we revise the numbers. When I was commissioner, we had a 500,000 job revision during President Trump's first term. And why do we do that? Because firms are created or firms go out of business, and we don't really know that during the course of the year until we reconcile against a real full count of all the businesses. We do that once a year. Once we do the reconciliation, like reconciling your checkbook, you find out whether you've got as much money or you have less. So just tell us, tell our viewers in a straightforward way. This woman has been fired. Yes. Presumably will be someone new. Will you believe the numbers coming out of the BLS after that? I will, because I know the people who work there. They are some of the most loyal Americans you can imagine. They've worked in every kind of political circumstance. They are completely devoted to producing the very best gold standard data possible. And that's why BLS is the finest statistical agency in the entire world. Its numbers are trusted all over the world. So I will trust those numbers. I do believe, though, that the president's attack on the commissioner and on the bureau is undermining that infrastructure, could undermine that trust over the long term. So that's why I'm so kind of upset about this. And I want the president to back off on his rhetoric. Do you think that this post should not be a political appointment? Well, some of the statistical agencies are run by non-political people. But everybody serves at the, you know, the pleasure of the president. I think that's the way, that's my own view. That's the way it should be. And here's why I think it should be a presidentially appointed Senate-confirmed position. Because you're able then, I was able, to sit in meetings with the secretary of labor or with the White House folks and get a sense of what were their priorities. Now, I would take that back to the bureau and I'd say, well, we need to produce more information about indigenous people. We need to produce more information about Pacific Islanders. Because you know, President Biden was very interested in that sort of thing. And he was elected. The statistical system should reflect as much as it can. You know, that's what it's all about here in Washington. All right. Former commissioner of the BLS, Bill Beach, thank you very much for being with us. My pleasure.

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