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Comment by konaraddi | Hacker News Reader

Paywalled

> On September 4th the Bureau of Labour Statistics reported that the American economy added 162,000 jobs in August, far above expectations.

Good news that ought to be taken with a pinch of salt given how the current administration responds to unfavorable BLS data -

> On Friday, August 1, [2025] President Trump fired Dr. Erika McEntarfer from her role as the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In social media posts announcing and confirming her firing, he said that he believed the jobs report released by the agency earlier that day included numbers that were “rigged in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.”

https://www.epi.org/policywatch/firing-bls-commissioner-erik...

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The first series of "Blackadder" has a vignette of such reportage:

Messenger 3: My Lord, news…

King: What?

Messenger 3: Lord Wessex is dead.

King: This news is not so good.

Messenger 3: Pardon, My Lord?

King: I like it not. Bring me some other news.

Messenger 3: Pardon, My Lord?

King: I LIKE NOT THIS NEWS! BRING ME SOME OTHER NEWS!!!

Messenger 3: Yes, My Lord!

(Messenger 3 leaves; King tosses things around angrily; Messenger 4 enters — actually just Messenger 3 pretending to be a new messenger delivering new news.)

Messenger 4: My Lord, news…

King: What?

Messenger 4: Lord Wessex is not dead.

King: Ah, good news! Let there be joy and celebration; let jubilation reign!

Even outside of the current administration, isn't BLS data notorious for being adjusted after the fact, often downwards? Basing reporting on fresh BLS data seems ill-advised.

Yeah, it's survey based and some employers don't hit the first few deadlines.

Last month got revised to being positive, at the same time that this month was being released.

When news doesn't confirm my belief, doubt it and make sure people know.

Trust me I do the same.

Wasn’t she only in that job for a year? Maybe she was doing a bad job.

The current head of the BLS seems well qualified. Here are some select quotes from a NYT article [1]:

  “Erica Groshen, who was commissioner during the Obama administration, also praised the selection. “He’s a B.L.S.-er, he’s a data nerd,” she said.”

  “The firing, and Mr. Antoni’s subsequent nomination, raised concerns that Mr. Trump would seek to interfere in the agency’s operations and perhaps try to skew its estimates to his political advantage. “
  
  “There is no evidence that has happened so far. The agency has been run since August by William Wiatrowski, its longtime deputy commissioner, who also led the bureau on an interim basis under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Economists continue to view the numbers the agency produces as reliable.”

Now these comments were written back in January of this year.

Can you cite any specific examples of wrongdoing? Or inaccurate numbers or figures outside of normal revisions?

When I see bad numbers from the BLS I say yes that’s probably true. When I see good numbers from the BLS I say yes that’s probably true.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/business/trump-bureau-of-...

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