{"id":140,"date":"2025-08-01T16:39:50","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T20:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/?p=140"},"modified":"2025-08-02T09:14:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T13:14:23","slug":"maybe-a-theorized-conspiracy-isnt-the-reason-for-job-number-revisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/maybe-a-theorized-conspiracy-isnt-the-reason-for-job-number-revisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe a theorized conspiracy isn’t the reason for job-number revisions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This morning’s monthly jobs report<\/a> estimated that the country didn’t add as many new workers in July as had been expected. More strikingly, it also showed that the number of jobs estimated to have been added in the reports for May and June were also<\/em> lower than had been expected \u2014 and, in fact, lower than had been reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bureau of Labor Statistics\u2019 initial estimates for May and June were increases of 139,000 and 147,000 jobs, respectively. After more data came in, though, the estimates shifted dramatically; it’s now estimated that the country added only 33,000 jobs in both months combined<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s important to note that such revisions are normal. The initial jobs numbers are just estimates and based on data for only part of each month. Those numbers are adjusted over the next two months and then for each fiscal year. Sometimes the adjustments lead to a higher estimate, sometimes lower. Sometimes there is a stretch in which jobs numbers are adjusted up. Sometimes there’s a stretch in which they’re adjusted down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BLS is transparent about all of this. Here, for example, are the initial and final estimates for each month since January 2017 (excluding the covid months in which the numbers shifted enormously and therefore broke the scale of the graph).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You’ll notice that the shifts for May and June are particularly large. In fact, they are among the ten biggest downward revisions over the past 20 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other eight months? March and April 2020, September and October 2008, December 2008 and 2020, January 2009 and March 2021. In other words, all months in which there were shocks to the economy: the financial crisis in 2008-2009 and the pandemic in 2020-2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So was there a shock to the economy in May and June that might explain those months’ inclusion in the top ten? Well, it depends: Do you accept the possibility that Trump’s ad hoc, sweeping application of tariffs to imports from a huge swath of the world in April might have had negative downstream effects?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump doesn’t, but, then, he wouldn’t. Instead, in a post at Truth Social, he blamed a Biden appointee<\/a> at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, announcing that she would be fired. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The numbers (and in particular those revisions) were “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” Trump wrote in another post<\/a>. It was just like how, “on November 15, 2024, right after the Election \u2026 the Jobs Numbers were massively revised DOWNWARD, making a correction of over 818,000 Jobs \u2014 A TOTAL SCAM.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except that (as he curiously noted in today’s first post about the BLS) the annual revision he refers to didn’t happen right after the election. It happened in August 2024, which can be demonstrated by the fact that Trump complained about the change then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a “MASSIVE SCANDAL<\/a>,” he wrote<\/a>, claiming that the Biden administration had been “caught fraudulently manipulating Job Statistics to hide the true extent of the Economic Ruin they have inflicted upon America.” He accused the administration of having “PADDED THE NUMBERS with an extra 818,000 Jobs that DO NOT EXIST, AND NEVER DID.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, uh, which is it? Is the BLS aiding a president (as claimed in 2024) by reporting too-high numbers and then revising them down or is it hurting a president (as claimed in 2025) by reporting too-high numbers and then revising them down? Or is the BLS just making estimates and then revising those estimates as more information about the job market becomes available?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is not the throughline for Trump, of course. His throughline is that if the numbers say bad things about his opponent that’s good and that if they say bad things about him, that’s bad. And now that he has the ability to control who’s saying those things, he is now pledging to replace the Biden appointee with someone “much more competent and qualified.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate,” he wrote on Truth Social. “[T]hey can\u2019t be manipulated for political purposes.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, of course, that’s exactly what Trump is demanding. He doesn’t want numbers that reflect the best estimates of government experts. He wants numbers that make him look good and he’s going to seek out a bureaucrat who will give him that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trump's 1st term BLS appointee\ud83d\udd25:

We call on Congress to respond immediately, to investigate the factors that led to Commissioner McEntarfer\u2019s removal, to strongly urge the Commissioner\u2019s continued service, and ensure that the nonpartisan integrity of the position is retained https:\/\/t.co\/cYyLm9cV2p<\/a><\/p>— Brendan Duke (@Brendan_Duke) August 1, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote>