E.J. Antoni, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, has drawn criticism for comments he made suggesting that the agency suspend its monthly job reports, which economists say could have far-reaching impacts, including for the construction industry.
Trump named Antoni as his nominee for BLS commissioner in a social media post Aug. 11 after removing the agency’s former head, Erika McEntarfer, a career federal manager, on Aug. 1. The president claimed in another post that the latest jobs report showing weaker hiring in July than expected as well as revisions revealing slower hiring in May and June than originally reported, was “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” with no supporting evidence.
BLS routinely revises prior two months’ data to incorporate additional data, although the adjustments in the latest jobs report were unusually large—cutting a combined 258,000 jobs from previous reporting. Last August, BLS revised its hiring numbers from March 2023 to March 2024, amounting to a 0.5% reduction for the period.
In an interview with Fox News Digital ahead of Trump’s nomination announcement, Antoni, chief economist for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said BLS should suspend its monthly job reports and continue with just quarterly reports until data gathering issues are “corrected.” That drew concerns from a wide range of economists, including conservatives, over potential partisan manipulation of the reports because of the importance of the data and trust in its accuracy.
“Doing away with the monthly employment report would be a big step in the wrong direction,” said Ken Simonson, chief economist at the Associated General Contractors of America, via email.
Having to wait longer for data would mean policymakers would have to use less timely or more speculative interim estimates, he added. For the construction industry, project owners would likely be more hesitant to proceed with projects without fresh numbers. It would also be more difficult to determine where construction employment is growing or shrinking without the current release schedule of state and local data along with national numbers.
Kristen Swearingen, vice president of government affairs at the Associated Builders and Contractors, said in a statement that it “is imperative the next BLS chief uphold the standards and reputation of the government’s statistical arm so that the business community has verifiable, factual, timely data.”
She added, “ABC looks forward to hearing the nominee’s insights on modernizing survey administration to ensure robust analysis of the nation’s labor and employment landscape and how to improve the [the U.S. Labor Dept.] Wage and Hour Division’s deeply flawed process for determining prevailing wage rates with BLS data.”
On the Sage Economics blog, Zack Fritz and Anirban Basu of Sage Policy Group—Basu is also the chief economist at ABC—raised concerns about Antoni’s qualifications as well as the potential he could apply a partisan focus to the role.
“Antoni’s mistakes are frequent, egregious, and include not understanding how the import price index works, using a dual Y axis to make unconnected series appear coincident, inappropriately fitting lines onto data series to suggest data manipulation, and asserting that we’ve been in recession twice in the past three years,” they wrote.
The Heritage Foundation named Antoni as chief economist in May. His past experience includes work at conservative-leaning think tanks including Unleash Prosperity and the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Fritz and Basu note that he has not worked with large statistics collection processes like those needed at BLS.
“E.J. Antoni is not qualified to run the BLS,” they wrote, contrasting his experience with that of William Beach, who Trump appointed as its commissioner during his first administration.
In his post naming Antoni to lead BLS, Trump claimed that Antoni “will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE.”
Antoni’s nomination requires confirmation by the Senate. A hearing has not yet been scheduled.
Meanwhile, BLS released its latest Producer Price Index Aug. 14 showing a rise in construction input prices.
