Dear John,
Donald Trump is destroying our source of information about jobs. He is trying to turn the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the nation’s most trusted source of jobs and wage data — into just another political tool.
This is beyond irresponsible. Trump hates facts. He rejects truth. He doesn’t want the public to know what’s really happening.
His nominee, E.J. Antoni, chief economist of the Heritage Foundation and key contributor to Project 2025, is already undermining confidence in the monthly jobs report, before even being confirmed. Antoni says the BLS should stop publishing monthly jobs numbers and only release quarterly updates, claiming that subsequent revisions prove the monthly data is “wrong.”
Rubbish!
Revisions are normal — every Labor Secretary has seen them. Measuring a $30 trillion economy is tricky at best. The most accurate jobs data is based on records that aren’t available until months or years later. Preliminary numbers give businesses, policymakers, and workers the timely information they need.
Trump’s real goal is to hide bad news and count on the public’s short memory. He has already fired the previous BLS commissioner for allegedly “rigging” the data against him (despite there being no evidence to support his claim). He wants a loyalist who will only deliver numbers that flatter him.
Earth to Senate: do not confirm Antoni. Trump does not want Americans to know the truth about the U.S. economy. Tell your Senators to reject Trump’s nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Once the BLS is politicized, its credibility collapses. And without credible data, the public and the markets have no way of knowing what is real. Without that confidence, longer-term interest rates will spike, as investors assume there’s no inflation cop on the beat and demand a higher risk premium.
It’s the same playbook Trump has used throughout his thugocracy: pressuring the Federal Reserve, gutting the EPA, extorting universities, muzzling the CDC and NIH, and suing NBC, CBS, and the Wall Street Journal. Any institution that produces inconvenient facts is attacked, purged, and bent to his will.
Truth itself becomes the casualty.
If Trump succeeds, Americans lose not only accurate jobs reports but the ability to trust their own government about the economy, the climate, and public health. This is how Trump turns our democracy into an Orwellian dystopia. The independence of the BLS — and the survival of truth in American democracy — is on the line.
Tell the Senate to reject the nomination of E.J. Antoni to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and insist that Americans get the truth about jobs and the U.S. economy.
Thank you for demanding truth in our democracy.
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
