By Sarah James
President Donald Trump’s firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on Aug. 1, 2025, after an unfavorable unemployment report has been drawing criticism for its potential to undercut the agency’s credibility. But it’s not the first time that his administration has taken steps that could weaken the integrity of some government data.
Consider the tracking of U.S. maternal mortality, which is the highest among developed nations. Since 1987, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has administered the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System to better understand when, where and why maternal deaths occur.
In April 2025, the Trump administration put the department in charge of collecting and tracking this data on leave.
So far, there are no indications that any BLS data has been deleted or disrupted. But there have been reports of that occurring in other agencies of all kinds.
The White House is also collecting less information about everything from how many Americans have health insurance to the number of students enrolled in public schools, and making government-curated data of all kinds off-limits to the public. President Donald Trump is also trying to get rid of entire agencies, like the Department of Education, that are responsible for collecting important data tied to poverty and inequality.
His administration has also begun deleting websites and respositories that share government data with the public.
Why data is essential for the safety net
I study the role that data plays in political decision-making, including when and how government officials decide to collect it. Through years of research, I’ve found that good data is essential – not just for politicians, but for journalists, advocates and voters. Without it, it’s much harder to figure out when a policy is failing, and even more difficult to help people who aren’t politically well connected.
Since Trump was sworn in for a second time, I have been keeping an eye on the disruption, removal and defunding of data on safety net programs such as food assistance and services for people with disabilities.
I believe that disrupting data collection will make it harder to figure out who qualifies for these programs, or what happens when people lose their benefits. I also think that all this missing data will make it harder for supporters of safety net programs to rebuild them in the future.
Why the government collects this data
There’s no way to find out whether policies and programs are working without credible data collected over a long period of time.
For example, without a system to accurately measure how many people need help putting food on their tables, it’s hard to figure out how much the country should spend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program, formerly known as food stamps, the federal supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, known as WIC, and related programs. Data on Medicaid eligibility and enrollment before and after the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 offers another example. National data showed that millions of Americans gained health insurance coverage after the ACA was rolled out.
Many institutions and organizations, such as universities, news organizations, think tanks, and nonprofits focused on particular issues like poverty and inequality or housing, collect data on the impact of safety net policies on low-income Americans.
No doubt these nongovernmental data collection efforts will continue, and maybe even increase. However, it’s highly unlikely that these independent efforts can replace any of the government’s data collection programs – let alone all of them.
The government, because it takes the lead in implementing official policies, is in a unique position to collect and store sensitive data collected over long periods of time. That’s why the disappearance of thousands of official websites can have very long-term consequences.
What makes Trump’s approach stand out
The Trump administration’s pausing, defunding and suppressing of government data marks a big departure from his predecessors.
As early as the 1930s, U.S. social scientists and local policymakers realized the potential for data to show which policies were working and which were a waste of money. Since then, policymakers across the political spectrum have grown increasingly interested in using data to make government work better.
This focus on data grew starting in 2001, when President George W. Bush made holding government accountable to measurable outcomes a top priority.
He saw data as a powerful tool for reducing waste and assessing policy outcomes. His signature education reform, the No Child Left Behind Act, radically expanded the collection and reporting of student achievement data at K-12 public schools.
Alex Wong/Getty Images)
How this contrasts with the Obama and Biden administrations
Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden emphasized the importance of data for evaluating the impact of their policies on low-income people, who have historically had little political clout.
Obama initiated a working group to identify ways to collect, analyze and incorporate more useful data into safety net policies. Biden implemented several of the group’s suggestions.
For example, he insisted on the collection of demographic data and its analysis when assessing the impacts of new safety net policies. This approach shaped how his administration handled changes in home loan practices, the expansion of broadband access and the establishment of outreach programs for enrolling people in Medicaid and Medicare.
Why rebuilding will be hard
It’s harder to make a case for safety net programs when you don’t have relevant data. For example, programs that help low-income people see a doctor, get fresh food and find housing can be more cost-effective than simply having them continue to live in poverty.
Blocking data collection may also make restoring government funding after a program gets cut or shut down even more challenging. That’s because it will be more challenging for people who in the past benefited from these programs to persuade their fellow taxpayers that there is a need for investing in a expanding program or creating a new one.
Without enough data, even well-intended policies in the future may worsen the very problems they’re meant to fix, long after the Trump administration has concluded.
Sarah James is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Gonzaga University.
Laurel says
Trump makes up his own data, we know that. “Lots of people say…”, the most people ever at his inauguration, and so on.
You know what data his DOGE babies collect? Your private health records, whether you are pregnant, your Social Security, your voting record, your political leaning, your facial id and expressions and anything that may be a threat to his Presidency. Also, black mailable “intel.”
Big Daddy.
Jim says
In my working career, it was drilled into me constantly by my management that we would always use all the facts we had to make our decisions on everything. If you went into a meeting and said you did something based on your “gut” or a “feeling” or anything similar, you were guaranteed to get chewed out (sometimes nicely, sometimes not) for not having anything concrete to support your actions. And it was a good bet that you wouldn’t be in your job long if that was determined to be your management technique. In short, we made decisions using everything we knew based on the facts we could develop. Sometimes we were wrong but usually, fact based decisions resulted in positive outcomes.
For many years, the US government has gathered data and put out this data for everyone to use – as stated in this article. And, for the most part, you could depend on the data being accurate. But now, Trump has fired the BLS chief because the jobs report is showing job creation is tanking. Neither he nor any of his cronies have presented a single shred of evidence that this is correct. It is that he didn’t like the report so fire the messenger. Classic poor management.
This isn’t the only example of what Trump’s administration is doing with fact gathering – as this article also states. What we are seeing is the systemic destruction of many of the tools of information available to the public to be able to make decisions and draw conclusions about subjects. If the information isn’t available, Trump and his cronies can just say the data is whatever they want it to be. I saw a report yesterday where Trump was claiming his approval ratings are over 70%. The interviewer tried to push back on that but Trump was adamant. Since Trump got elected, he’s stated egg prices have dropped massive amounts; gas is around $1.88 per gallon; Putin wants peace in Ukraine and on an on. And the less amount of data available to refute lies just emboldens him.
The fact is that regardless of whether the data is available or not, if jobs are tanking, Trump can lie about it all he wants but rank and file Americans will feel the impact. If food prices are up, we’ll all pay higher prices if we can afford it. Tariffs are now kicking in and, despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, prices on most everything imported are going to go up. It doesn’t matter what Trump says, we’ll all see the results for ourselves.
All Trump and his team are accomplishing is to further erode any trust that might remain in the federal government. I’m going to have a hard time believing anything coming out of any agency from now on. And God forbid we have another pandemic. First, I doubt the government will even acknowledge it (Trump in the first pandemic said things would be better if we just didn’t count the number of people dying – Google it). And, second, since mRNA vaccines are evil in the eyes of RFK, Jr. and MAGA, we’ll have to endure the pandemic for years as it takes 18 months of testing to see if a vaccine is successful using the old methods.
So as we go forward, MAGA can live in the fantasy land where all is good – all migrants are kicked out of the country, inflation doesn’t exist, jobs are plentiful, public schools are evil, colleges are dens of communist indoctrination, there is no global warming and Trump is truly God’s appointed savior of the world. I hope that is solace as the poor die in greater numbers, we all lose more and more rights, personal wealth drops for the middle class (if there is one) and this country finds itself increasingly isolated on the world stage.
Sherry says
She said sarcastically. . . Hey, what’s the problem? trump’s dictatorship is simply trying to grow mushrooms. Keep them in the dark and feed them shit!!!
Ray W, says
An Investopedia reporter writes that after release of the BLS jobs report for the month of June, which report included downward revisions to previous jobs reports for the months of May and June, a number of FOMC voting members have publicly spoken about the revisions:
– San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, according to the reporter, doesn’t see “a long-term threat to the economy from tariffs.” Should a sudden unemployment rise occur, it “could require a quicker response from the Fed.”
“‘We know that once the labor market stumbles, it tends to fall quickly and hard,’ Daly said. ‘All this means that we will likely need to adjust policy in the coming months.'”
– Atlanta Fed President Rafael Bostic went on record as saying that the BLS report, while worrisome, is not enough to change his position of only one more lending rate cut through the remainder of the year.
“‘Those revisions were quite large, and I think it really reflects some of the churn and the turbulence in the economy,’ Bostic said. ‘It really did cause me to think a little differently about how well we’re doing relative to our maximum employment mandate.'”
– Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook expressed concern about the BLS revisions, adding that “officials must follow labor market data more closely over the coming months.”
“‘Thes revisions are somewhat typical of turning points, which speak to uncertainty,’ Cook said.”
– Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari told a CBS interviewer:
“Wage growth is coming down. We’ve seen the jobs number and consumer spending is cooling. All of that suggests the real underlying economy is slowing. … That means in the near term, it may become appropriate to start adjusting the federal funds rate.”
Kashkari projects two lending rate cuts by the end of 2025.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Fed President Kashkari speaks of a “real” underlying economy. This perspective is worth considering.
I have repeatedly commented that America has a $30 trillion annual GDP output, largely driven by the spending habits of 340 million Americans. Such staggering numbers numb the mind. It is hard to fully embrace such fantastic numbers. We need statistical data, accurate statistical data, to help us comprehend what is really happening inside our economy.
Weekly reports offer tiny snapshots, perhaps inaccurate snapshots, into an economy that can take years to respond to new policy decisions. I recently drew excerpts from an article addressing economic lag times between implementing policy and actually seeing results in the ensuing data. An obvious example of this concept was the 2020 pandemic that severely damaged the structures on which the economy is founded. When President Trump threw nearly $3 trillion into the demand side of the American economic, starting in March 2020, the first sign of economic overheating was reflected in economic data months and months later. It wasn’t until some 18 months after the vast infusion of unfunded stimulus money that inflation began to rapidly rise. The Fed didn’t start ramping up lending rates until early in 2022, but the impact wasn’t reflected in the data until much later.
Monthly snapshots offer more clarity than do weekly snapshots, and quarterly snapshots are usually even better. Year-over-year figures can be the most favored economic reports, according to the Fed.
In the end, however, no matter what the statistical data, each source of statistical data is nothing more than a snapshot into how the overall underlying “real” economy is operating.
Pogo says
@Sarah James
Stalin/Hitleresque purge is more on point.
You’re quite optimistic — speaking of a future that’s continuously less probable. It will be interesting, well, something, anyway — when this is compared to the rapidly approaching day that Trump is the only channel; the omnipresent image of Don duh God floating above stage fog: a key light on its gold color air freshener crown atop the gold lamé ski mask that replaces its comb over. Ok, really, just a hologram — after all — even gods have to have time to eat in bed, splash their walls with ketchup, punish their toilet, and daydream about their press secretary eating mushrooms…
Ray W, says
Business Insider devoted space to a 2,500-word response by AT&T’s CEO, John Stankey, to information in an “employee engagement survey.”
The reporter, initially skeptical of the CEO’s response, writes of reading it over and over again in an attempt to better understand the message.
From the perspective of a declining sense of loyalty of the part of management to company employees, the reporter focused on Stankey’s language: “Some of you may have started your tour with this company expecting an ’employment deal’ rooted in loyalty. … We have consciously shifted away from some of these elements.”
In organizational psychology, there is another term for the phrase “employment deal”; it is “psychological contract.” What Stankey is doing is rewriting the implicit psychological contract held between employees and their employers. What he is saying is: Don’t expect loyalty from your employer, i.e., your workplace will from now on be operating in an atmosphere of fear.
CEO Stankey went on to write that any dissatisfied employees need to consider getting out: “[Y]our professional expectations might be misaligned with the strategic direction of the company.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Corporate literature from the 80s was filled with “cradle to grave” stories coming out of Japan. The major Japanese corporations hired the children of their original employees and the children of those children. Once you started working in a Honda factory, you had a job for life, with a pension. You were part of the Honda family. That corporate ethos blew apart in the economic collapse throughout Japan in the late 80s. AT&T, ironically, was once an American company that once had a “cradle to grave” ethos, too.
Honda, famously, had a policy of making any part for any Honda ever sold, so long as Soichiro Honda lived. If an avid restorer needed a new throttle cable, for example, for a 30-year-old Honda moped she had found in someone’s barn, she could call any Honda dealer and order the throttle cable, at a normal price. It might have taken time to make the cable and ship it to America, but a brand-new cable, built to original manufacturer specifications, would arrive at the dealership. There was for a long time an unwritten contract between Honda Motor Company and anyone who wanted to ride a Honda. That corporate mindset is now long gone.
Skibum says
Sharpiegate 2.0
The only thing drumph learned from his previous Sharpiegate 1.0 is he doesn’t actually have to be holding a black marker in his little fingers to alter facts and make shit up that his maga mush heads will eat up like every tidbit is a delectable truffle. He can parade his “project 2025” architect out there, have some other sycophants in his WH make up large, colored charts that show wonderful economic numbers, probably the Bestest Numbers In The History Of Any American President, OMG!!!
But firing the actual statistician who was responsible for reporting the true jobs numbers WAS wrong. Lying about why she had to be thrown under the bus for no reason whatsoever except that the latest job numbers were bad IS still lying. And making up fake numbers and graphs to try to cover up bad news is still throwing shit out there and telling Americans it is not shit, it is delectable truffles, eat up.
But that is exactly what drumph does, what he has ALWAYS done… and yet, his maga much heads will continue to eat it all up… which only proves they are full of shit! Sorry for the expletives, but it is what it is.
Atwp says
He didn’t like the numbers, get rid of the person who gave I believe the true numbers. Hire somebody who will give what you want to hear. Dictatorship in the making. That is what communist countries do, kill the peoples who tell the truth and fight you, and hire people who will do what you say, whether right or wrong. Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to communist America.
Ed P says
The root cause of the problem can be seen if you look at the fact that of the last 30 reports, 24 have had to be adjusted downward.
The data being used to construct this useless ( wrong 80%) report could be the real problem.
Maybe it is time to stop using it or to wait for the data to settle so accurate information can be gleaned.