Free Republic

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...

President Trump has nominated an unqualified economist to take over one of America’s most important statistical agencies. On August 1, Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS produces the consumer price index and the jobs report, two of the most important statistical products of the U.S. government, among hundreds of other reports and thousands of data series. Some tried to defend Trump’s move by saying he was demanding improvements to the agency’s methodology, which is in need of updating. The response rate to the employer survey for the jobs report has declined...

General Motors CEO Mary Barra has publicly cozied up to the Trump administration in recent months, including promoting a major investment in the United States last week, but her tenure at the company has included several examples of the company shipping production and jobs overseas. "I'm actually looking forward to working with the president and with the administration, because I think we can grow the importance of the auto industry and manufacturing, and so I think there's a lot that we have in common," Barra said about the incoming Trump administration in December 2024. This month, GM announced that it...

An economist skewered the leftist media for mindlessly propping up the Biden-Harris job market as the epitome of success now that it was revealed that the government overestimated job growth by nearly 1 million jobs. The Biden-Harris administration’s overestimation was a whopping 818,000 jobs, equal to about 30 percent of the reported jobs growth in the 12-month period ending March 2024. The revision obliterates much of the optimism about how legendary the Biden-Harris job market supposedly was. The New York Times blathered in a June 2024 analysis piece about Biden having a “historically strong job market.” The Times economic columnist...

Friday’s jobs report has everyone excited. Everyone, that is, who is pulling for Joe Biden to win reelection. Outside that blinkered lot, the pain of Bidenomics is still very real. “Today’s report marks a milestone in America’s comeback,” he said. “Three years ago, I inherited an economy on the brink” – a lie we’ve repeatedly exposed – “With today’s report of 303,000 new jobs in March, we have passed the milestone of 15 million jobs created since I took office” – another lie; as we noted last week, the economy has created only 5 million net new jobs under Biden,...

Have you taken a peek at the balance in your 401(k) retirement accounts lately? Here’s our advice: Don’t bother. It will ruin your whole day, week and month. We’ve now had seven straight months of 8%+ inflation. A year ago we were assured by the White House that these rapid price increases in everything from groceries, to rental cars, to gasoline at the pump, to health insurance were merely “transitory.” Whoops. The most immediate sticker shock from Bidenflation has been to shrink real take-home paychecks of workers. This rise in consumer prices over wages means that the average family in...