President Donald Trump fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, claiming that last week\u2019s jobs report \u201cwas rigged\u201d without providing any evidence.<\/p>\n
But former Labor Statistics officials say that the commissioner typically doesn\u2019t have a role in preparing the monthly jobs report. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no way for that to happen,\u201d William Beach, who was nominated by Trump to serve as BLS commissioner in the last half of Trump’s first term, said Sunday in an interview on CNN. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe commissioner doesn\u2019t do anything to collect the numbers. The commissioner doesn\u2019t see the numbers until Wednesday before they\u2019re published. By the time the commissioner sees the numbers, they\u2019re all prepared. They\u2019re locked into the computer system,\u201d Beach continued.<\/p>\n
So how does the BLS collect data for the jobs report?<\/p>\n
The process for preparing the monthly jobs report, formally known as the \u201cEmployment Situation Summary,\u201d starts with a survey of American households. <\/p>\n
The Current Population Survey goes out to about 60,000 households across the country, including about 2,000 trained employees interviewing people. The sample of households surveyed changes periodically and no household is surveyed more than four months in a row.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach month, one-eighth of the sample is interviewed for the first time, one-eighth for the second time, and so on. This rotation scheme has been in use since July 1953 and strengthens the reliability of estimates of month-to-month change as well as estimates of year-to-year change,\u201d the bureau says in its website<\/a>. <\/p>\n The BLS also conducts a survey of government agencies and businesses, asking them for information about their workforce, hours worked and earnings data from their payroll records. That data is collected by BLS over the phone and digitally. After data from companies and agencies are submitted, BLS analysts review the data. All of the information submitted to the BLS is treated with strict confidentiality.<\/p>\n Federal law authorizes the Bureau of Labor Statistics to collect and process this information.<\/p>\n Asked to provide evidence for Trump\u2019s claims of impropriety, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Sunday on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d that revisions made to prior months were \u201cthe evidence.\u201d <\/p>\n Trump also said the revisions were evidence of someone manipulating the data, \u201cI assume in the hopes of getting \u2018Kamala\u2019 elected.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWhat you saw on Friday was the effect of trying to do a better job, getting more information,\u201d Beach said, referring to the revisions.<\/p>\n Erica Groshen, commissioner of the agency from 2013 through 2017, concurred and said revisions are not the sign of any manipulation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe important thing is to realize that revisions are not a bug. They\u2019re a feature, right? The BLS tries three different times to get employers to report how many jobs they have and sometimes the employers can\u2019t report it right away. So, the BLS imputes the number from behavior of other people, other companies like them, and history,\u201d Groshen said on CNN on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd [BLS] puts out the first monthly number because there\u2019s a lot of good information in it, but it\u2019s not complete. And then a month later it goes back and asks those employers again. They have another chance. And if they made a mistake, they have a chance to correct their mistakes. And it goes back a third time to make sure that they got it right,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n While response rates to the Bureau\u2019s surveys have been declining<\/a>, researchers recently found<\/a> that revisions and falling response rates did not reduce the reliability of the jobs and inflation reports. <\/p>\n