How Trump’s Plans Could Undermine Confidence in Critical Government Economic Data

President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to “shatter the deep state” by giving the White House more authority to fire federal workers could, some experts fear, undermine trust in the accuracy of government-produced economic statistics.

Trump has promised to rid the government of “rogue bureaucrats” by implementing a policy introduced in his first administration’s final days. In 2020, Trump created a new employment classification for federal workers called “Schedule F,” which gave the president more authority to hire and fire workers, superceding the merit-based Civil Service Commission.

Critics say implementing the policy, which President Joe Biden reversed in the early days of his administration, would allow Trump to replace career employees with loyalists.

One of those critics is Erica Groshen, who served as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) during the second Obama term from 2013 until 2017. Groshen argues that replacing agency leaders with political appointees could make statistics on the unemployment rate, job creation, inflation, and wages less reliable.

“Data users have to be able to trust that the statistics are objective and accurate,” she said in an interview with Investopedia. “This would seriously undermine trust in objectivity and reduce the quality of statistics.”

Reliable Data is Critical for Decision-Makers

An erosion of the quality or reliability of the data produced by the BLS, Census Bureau and other government departments would pose significant problems for the businesses, investors and other decision-makers who rely on the numbers to gauge the health of the economy.

Keith Hall, BLS commissioner under George W. Bush, has also gone on the record in opposition of putting Schedule F employees in positions at the bureau.

“I considered it somewhat my job to protect the career people,” Hall told Marketplace in an October interview. “I don’t think you you want a statistical agency flinching when they have to deliver bad news or or hiding bad news. If you bring in too many politicals, if you do the Schedule F stuff, I think you run a danger there.”

The Trump transition team did not reply to an emailed request for comment.

Concerns About Non-Statistical Priorities

Groshen is concerned that non-statistical priorities based on political or financial considerations could be introduced, unqualified leaders could be hired and overall agency standards could suffer.

“Without proper vetting and transparency, you might have spinning of (data) release narratives. You could have speeding up or withholding releases at will. You could have special, early, or granular access to statistics or data for non-statistical purposes,” she said.

Trump himself has accused the BLS under President Biden of cooking the books.

In August, when the bureau downwardly revised the previous year’s job creation figures in a routine annual adjustment, Trump posted on his social media site that it proved the administration had been “fraudulently manipulating Job Statistics.”

Trump did not provide evidence of any wrongdoing. Fact-checkers at the non-partisan Poynter Institute deemed the claim a falsehood.

Merging Stats Agencies Could Be Positive

Schedule F is not the only Trump policy proposal that could affect federal economic reports.

Project 2025, the policy blueprint for the Trump Administration created by the influential Heritage Foundation think tank, calls for several changes, including merging the BLS, the Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis into a single statistical agency.

It also recommends having the BLS report family-related statistics more regularly, including increasing the frequency of an annual report detailing the costs of various household expenses.

Groshen said merging the statistical agencies is a good idea and that collecting more data on family-related statistics could be useful, but noted that such efforts would have to be funded somehow.