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Key Takeaways
- President-elect Donald Trump's plan to give the White House more authority to fire federal workers could, some experts fear, undermine trust in the accuracy of government-produced economic statistics.
- The critics say that implementing this policy will allow Trump to replace loyalists with career employees who may introduce priorities not based in statistics – purely a political decision.
- Government data—including statistics on the unemployment rate, inflation, and job creation—are widely used by decision-makers inside and outside the government to gauge the health of the economy.
- The former Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner said the accuracy of data might be compromised if those loyal to the President began to manipulate the numbers or if they hired less-qualified workers in order replace skilled employees.
President-elect Donald Trump's plan to "shatter the deep state" by giving the White House more authority to fire federal workers could, some experts fear, undermine trust in the accuracy of government-produced economic statistics.
Trump has promised to rid the government of "rogue bureaucrats" by implementing a policy introduced in his first administration's final days. In 2020, Trump created a new employment classification for federal workers called "Schedule F," which gave the president more authority to hire and fire workers, superceding the merit-based Civil Service Commission.
The critics say that implementing this policy which was reversed by President Joe Biden in his early administration would enable Trump to replace loyalists with career employees.
Erica Groshen is one of these critics. She served as the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics during Obama’s second term, from 2013 to 2017. Groshen believes that the replacement of agency heads with appointees from politics could lead to a decrease in reliability for statistics related to unemployment rates, wages, inflation, or job creation.
"Data users have to be able to trust that the statistics are objective and accurate," she said in an interview with Investopedia. "This would seriously undermine trust in objectivity and reduce the quality of statistics."
Reliable Data is Critical for Decision-Makers
An erosion of the quality or reliability of the data produced by the BLS, Census Bureau and other government departments would pose significant problems for the businesses, investors and other decision-makers who rely on the numbers to gauge the health of the economy.
Keith Hall was the BLS commissioner for George W. Bush and has publicly opposed the hiring of Schedule F staff at the bureau.
"I considered it somewhat my job to protect the career people,” Hall told Marketplace in an October interview. “I don’t think you you want a statistical agency flinching when they have to deliver bad news or or hiding bad news. “I think that if you include too much political stuff or Schedule F, you are putting yourself in danger.”
The Trump transition team did not reply to an emailed request for comment.
Concerns About Non-Statistical Priorities
Groshen is concerned that non-statistical priorities based on political or financial considerations could be introduced, unqualified leaders could be hired and overall agency standards could suffer.
"Without proper vetting and transparency, you might have spinning of (data) release narratives. You could have speeding up or withholding releases at will. You could have special, early, or granular access to statistics or data for non-statistical purposes," she said.
Trump himself has accused the BLS under President Biden of cooking the books.
In August, when the bureau downwardly revised the previous year’s job creation figures in a routine annual adjustment, Trump posted on his social media site that it proved the administration had been “fraudulently manipulating Job Statistics.”
Trump did not provide evidence of any wrongdoing. Fact-checkers at the non-partisan Poynter Institute deemed the claim a falsehood.
Merging Stats Agencies Could Be Positive
Schedule F is not the only Trump policy proposal that could affect federal economic reports.
Project 2025, the policy blueprint for the Trump Administration created by the influential Heritage Foundation think tank, calls for several changes, including merging the BLS, the Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis into a single statistical agency.
It also recommends having the BLS report family-related statistics more regularly, including increasing the frequency of an annual report detailing the costs of various household expenses.
Groshen said merging the statistical agencies is a good idea and that collecting more data on family-related statistics could be useful, but noted that such efforts would have to be funded somehow.
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