Erika McEntarfer, the former Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), who President Donald Trump fired in August, made her first public remarks on Tuesday, fiercely defending the integrity of the nation’s economic data and warning of the severe consequences of political interference.
Abrupt Termination Is A ‘Dangerous Step’
Speaking at her alma mater, the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, McEntarfer said the abrupt termination could undermine economic stability.
Her central warning revolved around the politicization of crucial economic institutions. “Firing your chief statistician is a dangerous step,” she asserted, according to CNN Business.
“That's an attack on the independence of an institution arguably as important as the Federal Reserve for economic stability. It has serious economic consequences, but that they would do this with no warning — it made no sense.”
Ex-BLS Chief Cites Examples Of Countries That Ousted Statisticians
The former commissioner drew parallels to countries like Argentina, Greece, and Turkey, which suffered “worsening economic crises, higher inflation and higher borrowing costs” after pushing out statisticians over disappointing data.
“Messing with economic data is like messing with the traffic lights and turning the sensors off,” McEntarfer explained, underscoring the vital role of impartial data in guiding policy and markets.
McEntarfer Recounts Termination Day
“August 1 was like any other first Friday of the month when the job numbers come out, and my quiet and usually obscure little corner [of] the government goes about its business of telling political leaders what these data tell us about the state of the economy,” she recounted.
“Except, by the end of that day, I had been very publicly fired by the president of the United States and was on my way to becoming a household name. It was quite a day, to say the least.”
Trump Fires BLS Chief, Alleging Political Bias
McEntarfer, a Biden appointee, was dismissed by Trump following a weak July jobs report and substantial revisions to previous months’ data. Trump publicly announced her firing on Truth Social, accusing her of “faking the Jobs Numbers” and producing “RIGGED” data to politically disadvantage him.
McEntarfer acknowledged some of these concerns, noting, “I was prepared to help BLS modernize data collection.”
Price Action
The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ), which track the S&P 500 index and Nasdaq 100 index, respectively, ended lower on Tuesday. The SPY was down 0.14% at $660.00, while the QQQ declined 0.085% to $591.18, according to Benzinga Pro data.
On Wednesday, the futures of the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and Nasdaq 100 indices were lower.
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