On a quiet Monday morning in January 2007, Graciela Bevacqua, then head of the consumer-price index at Argentina’s national statistics agency, Indec, was summoned to her boss’s office. The news was blunt and unsettling: the president wanted her out. Bevacqua’s refusal to manipulate official inflation figures had put her in the crosshairs of President Néstor Kirchner, whose wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, was gearing up to succeed him in the upcoming election. That moment marked the beginning of one of the most infamous episodes of government interference in economic data in recent history—a saga whose echoes are now being heard far beyond Argentina’s borders.
According to Livemint, Bevacqua’s principled stand was met with swift retribution. She was replaced by a loyalist willing to bend the numbers. The stakes were high: Argentina’s inflation rate was officially reported as 8.5% in 2007, down from 9.8% the previous year. But private economists pegged the real figure closer to 25%. This discrepancy wasn’t just an academic quibble; it had real-world consequences for millions of Argentines, from pensioners to union members whose benefits and contracts were tied to the inflation rate.
The manipulation of inflation data provided short-term political and fiscal benefits. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner sailed to victory in 2007, succeeding her husband. The government saved billions on inflation-linked bonds, freeing up cash for social programs and subsidies that bolstered its popularity. But as Livemint reported, the savings proved illusory. Lawsuits from unions and pensioners poured in, challenging the government’s numbers. Meanwhile, artificially high GDP figures—another consequence of data manipulation—forced the government to pay more on debt tied to economic growth. “It started to become a huge mess,” Harvard economist Alberto Cavallo told Livemint. Cavallo, an Argentine native, even created a website to track inflation using publicly available prices, filling the void left by Indec’s compromised data. He recalled how everyday Argentines would email him with practical questions, like how to adjust divorce settlements for real inflation. “The examples add up, and you end up realizing how important some of these statistics are,” Cavallo said.
The consequences of tampering with economic data extended far beyond the political arena. Argentina’s experience became a cautionary tale for other nations—especially those with otherwise robust, independent statistical institutions. As Livemint noted, Indec had survived military dictatorships, hyperinflation, and economic crises. It was once considered a model agency in Latin America, governed by strong legal frameworks and staffed by over 100 professionals working on the inflation index alone. “The index had so many safeguards, it seemed impossible to me that someone could manage to change the numbers,” Bevacqua reflected. “Not only did that happen, but they stayed for many years, and part of the institution is still recovering.”
Political appointees wasted no time after Bevacqua’s removal. They changed the methodology for items that had seen price spikes—lettuce, health insurance, and hotels, among others—according to Argentine prosecutors. The manipulation didn’t stop there. Price controls, capital controls, and exchange-rate restrictions distorted the economy further, while the central bank, stripped of independence, kept interest rates too low to combat inflation. The result? Inflation soared, peaking at a staggering 289% in 2024, before falling to 39% by June 2025 following a change in leadership and policy direction.
Eventually, the façade crumbled. Argentina ceased its data manipulation in 2015 after Fernández de Kirchner left office, introducing a new, credible inflation series in June 2016. The reckoning was not just economic but legal: Guillermo Moreno, the minister who spearheaded the politicization of Indec, was sentenced to three years of conditional prison—akin to probation—and barred from public office for six years.
The story might have remained a uniquely Argentine tragedy if not for recent developments in the United States. On August 1, 2025, President Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), accusing the agency of rigging jobs data to make Republicans look bad. Trump offered no evidence for his claims, and independent economists swiftly dismissed the allegations. The firing sent shockwaves through the economic and political establishment, raising uncomfortable questions about the politicization of data in the world’s largest economy.
“This is the sort of thing only the worst populists do in the worst emerging economies,” economist Phil Suttle wrote in a note to clients, as reported by Livemint. The parallels to Argentina’s experience were hard to ignore. In the U.S., the integrity of economic data underpins everything from tax policy and retirement benefits to the reserve-currency status of the dollar and the stability of $120 trillion in stocks and bonds. If credibility is lost, the consequences could be dire.
William Beach, McEntarfer’s Trump-appointed predecessor at the BLS, called her firing “totally groundless” and warned it set a “dangerous precedent.” He argued that restoring trust would require appointing a commissioner whose honesty and integrity are beyond reproach—a unanimous Senate confirmation, in his view, would be the only way to heal the wound. “If new appointees are perceived as partisan, that would likely erode the agencies’ credibility,” Beach cautioned. The risk, he explained, is that market participants would discount positive economic data, suspecting it had been massaged, and presume negative data to be even worse than reported. Policymakers, including the Federal Reserve, would find themselves flying blind, unable to respond effectively to economic shifts.
Brent Moulton, a former associate director at the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, put it starkly: “You can’t hide the fact that people are out of work and prices are changing, but without direct measurement of those things that are officially collected and that everyone has equal access to, it really would be sort of a Dark Ages situation.”
Institutional safeguards do exist in the U.S. Mishandling economic statistics or improperly accessing confidential data is a felony. Dozens of career staffers work on major releases like the monthly jobs report, inflation data, and GDP, making it difficult for any one individual to manipulate the numbers without detection. Yet, as Argentina’s experience shows, even the most robust institutions can be undermined if the political will is strong enough and the checks are systematically eroded.
As of August 10, 2025, Trump had yet to announce McEntarfer’s replacement, though he told reporters he planned to do so “sometime over the next three or four days.” The BLS is set to release the July consumer price index on August 12, the first major report since McEntarfer’s firing. All eyes will be on the agency, its new leadership, and the data it produces.
Graciela Bevacqua, reflecting on her own experience, drew a cautionary distinction: while Argentina’s government had made unusually detailed requests about inflation data for at least a year before her removal, she believes the U.S. still has strong institutions. “But it could be a sign. You never know.”
The lesson from Argentina is clear: when politicians meddle with economic data, the damage can be profound and long-lasting. The credibility of numbers may seem abstract, but their impact is felt in every paycheck, pension, and policy decision. As the U.S. stands at a potential crossroads, the stakes could hardly be higher.
