Posted on 08/12/2025 8:45:32 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
WASHINGTON (AP) — The director of the agency that produces the nation’s jobs and inflation data is typically a mild-mannered technocrat, often with extensive experience in statistical agencies, with little public profile.
But like so much in President Donald Trump’s second administration, this time is different.
Trump has selected E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to be the next commissioner at the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Antoni’s nomination was quickly met with a cascade of criticism from other economists, from across the political spectrum.
His selection threatens to bring a new level of politicization to what for decades has been a nonpartisan agency widely accepted as a producer of reliable measures of the nation’s economic health. While many former Labor Department officials say it it unlikely Antoni will be able to distort or alter the data, particularly in the short run, he could change the currently dry-as-dust way it is presented.
Antoni was nominated by Trump after the BLS released a jobs report Aug. 1 that showed that hiring had weakened in July and was much lower in May and June than the agency had previously reported. Trump, without evidence, charged that the data had been “rigged” for political reasons and fired the then-BLS chair, Erika McEntarfer, much to the dismay of many within the agency.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
The left wants control of the numbers.
Who knew?
Wow. Astonishing.
> The director of the agency that produces the nation’s jobs and inflation data is typically a mild-mannered technocrat <
Really? I don’t recall seeing that anywhere in the Constitution. But the AP is all worked up about this nomination. So I guess it’s in the Constitution, but I just missed it.
🤔
“Antoni’s nomination was quickly met with a cascade of criticism from other economists, from across the political spectrum”
Allow me to translate. This guy is good stuff. “Economists” of the Approved Type, are just largely a bunch of cranks, “across the political spectrum” is a throwaway phrase.
Of course he does, because complaining is the tool the Democrats use, and the press will push that narrative forward regardless of the accuracy of the claim(s).
Not too much of a concern.
The PCE comes from a different department, the Fed has its own estimates and most major banks do too.
It would do folks good to spend some time learning how CPI is calculated.
Synopsis: A survey is done to determine the categories of spending of Urban (note this, it is different from PCE) household spending. So the survey asks what % of your monthly budget is shelter, healthcare, food etc. Then after these %’s are obtained, each category is profiled for its price change.
It’s a solid procedure. Pretty hard to fudge because all those independent estimates are in place. That’s where the better or worse or cooler or hotter than expected stuff comes from. We have fewer of those for jobs estimates, but they do exist.
There really is not much cheating, though the revisions were did bespeak some incompetence so maybe that lady needed to be booted.
PCE is out in a week or two. Estimates are it will be hotter than today’s Core Y/Y 3.1% number.
Those numbers do not cry out . . . we need a rate cut! They are going the wrong direction when the Fed target is 2%.
The more the democRATS and DemoKKKrats complain, the more I like the nominee.
>>”The director of the agency that produces the nation’s jobs and inflation data is typically a mild-mannered technocrat..”
And God forbid we should we should ever do something in Washington that is not typical. After all, everything in Washington has worked so well up till now.
6 months in? Doing great, be me. https://torrancestephensphd.substack.com/p/taco-more-like-trump-and-capital
>> Antoni’s nomination was quickly met with a cascade of criticism from other economists, from across the political spectrum.
Yeah, right, from across the WHOLE socialist spectrum... all the way from RINO Assistant Democrap to Full On Marxist Democrap.
All the lefties hate this guy! He must be OK. :-)
>> The more the democRATS and DemoKKKrats complain, the more I like the nominee.
Yeah, I got yer LITMUS TEST right here! ROFL
Whenever the media says “nonpartisan agency” you can be sure it’s full of Democrat lifers.
What the scumbags are really worried about is that they can no longer cook the books to support whatever propaganda is in vogue at the current moment.
That headline may have been written before Trump chose anyone for the job.
POLITICISE - To challenge, in any way, the left-entrenched status quo
btt
the worser the Dems hate on a Trump nominee, the better they’ll be for MAGA ...
Probably because he has a higher IQ than the lot of them combined.
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