On September 9, 2025, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) dropped a bombshell: the U.S. economy added 911,000 fewer jobs over the 12 months ending in March than previously reported. According to the BLS, this is the largest downward revision ever recorded in the agency’s history, a figure that’s left economists, policymakers, and everyday Americans reeling—and asking tough questions about the true state of the nation’s labor market.
For years, the BLS has served as the gold standard for labor data in the United States, producing widely anticipated monthly reports that help shape everything from Federal Reserve policy to dinner-table debates about the economy. But the latest revision—part of a routine but crucial process that compares monthly survey estimates with more comprehensive state unemployment data—suggests the labor market was far weaker in 2024 and early 2025 than anyone realized. The preliminary estimate, which will be finalized next year, has already surpassed economists’ predictions and exceeded even the downward reduction of 818,000 jobs announced last August.
The process behind this revision is, in theory, nothing new. Each year, the BLS checks its monthly jobs numbers—gathered from a sample of employers—against more complete data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), which tracks employment and wages reported by employers covering over 95% of U.S. jobs. This time, however, the gap was unusually wide. Economists at Goldman Sachs predicted a revision of 550,000 to 950,000 jobs; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent estimated up to 800,000. The actual figure landed at the top of those ranges, stunning observers across the political and financial spectrum.
"Today's data suggests cooling in the labor market is more dramatic than previously thought," Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet, told CBS. She added, "This strengthens the likelihood that the Fed will cut rates next week, as it's additional evidence that the labor market side of the dual mandate needs some attention."
The implications of this revision are already rippling through Washington. The White House, now under President Donald Trump, wasted no time in seizing on the news. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared in a statement, "Today, the BLS released the largest downward revision on record proving that President Trump was right: Biden’s economy was a disaster and the BLS is broken. This is exactly why we need new leadership to restore trust and confidence in the BLS’s data on behalf of the financial markets, businesses, policymakers, and families that rely on this data to make major decisions."
Leavitt’s words echoed the administration’s broader campaign to question the integrity of the BLS. Former President Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer—a Biden appointee with two decades of federal service—last month after a weak jobs report, accusing her, without evidence, of manipulating statistics for political reasons. "I believe the numbers were phony just like they were before the election, and there were other times," Trump said, referencing the previous year’s revision as an alleged attempt to benefit Democrats ahead of the election.
McEntarfer, in a social media post after her dismissal, responded, "It has been the honor of my life to serve as Commissioner of BLS alongside the many dedicated civil servants tasked with measuring a vast and dynamic economy. It is vital and important work and I thank them for their service to this nation." Her firing drew swift condemnation from William Beach, a former BLS commissioner appointed by Trump. "The totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer, my successor as Commissioner of Labor Statistics at BLS, sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau," Beach posted on X.
Others in the Trump administration have also weighed in. Vice President J.D. Vance called BLS data "useless" prior to the leadership change, and Trump has nominated conservative economist E.J. Antoni, formerly of the Heritage Foundation, to lead the agency. Antoni’s nomination is pending Senate confirmation and has already sparked debate about the future independence and credibility of the BLS.
But what’s behind the massive revision? According to the BLS, the mismatch stems from the challenge of tracking businesses that open or close during the year—something that’s difficult for the monthly jobs report to capture in real time. The QCEW, which draws from state unemployment insurance tax records, revealed that both responding and non-responding firms had lower employment than previously estimated. Samuel Tombs, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, noted in a research note that "probably about two-thirds of the downward benchmark revision looks set to be due to weaker job creation at new firms than the BLS initially inferred from its model."
The consequences for the Federal Reserve are immediate and profound. With the revised numbers, job growth in 2025 averaged just 44,000 per month—down from 75,000 prior to the revision. In 2024, payroll gains averaged 106,000 per month, compared to 168,000 previously. As Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank, put it, "The revision shows the economy entered 2025 with less momentum than previously understood. It's now a lock that the Fed will cut interest rates at their meeting next week and that further rate cuts will follow in the months ahead. The question is by how much."
Indeed, the probability of a 0.25 percentage point rate cut at the Fed’s September 17 meeting is now projected at 94%, according to economists polled by FactSet. Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz and chair of Under Armour, commented, "The revision sheds light on what was a significant difference between how the labor market was said to be performing and how people felt about it in surveys."
The political stakes are just as high as the economic ones. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, whose department includes the BLS, said in a release, "Today’s massive downward revision gives the American people even more reason to doubt the integrity of data being published by BLS." She criticized the use of "outdated methods that rendered a once reliable system completely ineffective and call[ed] into question the motivation behind their inaction."
Meanwhile, the revision has reignited debates about the objectivity of government data and the independence of agencies like the BLS and the Federal Reserve. Trump’s efforts to pressure Fed Chair Jerome Powell—whom he has repeatedly accused of being "too late" to cut rates—have only intensified. Treasury Secretary Bessent echoed these criticisms, writing, "President Trump inherited a far worse economy than reported, and he's right to say the Fed is choking off growth with high rates."
All this comes as recent Labor Department data has shown weak job growth in the summer of 2025, with only 22,000 jobs added in August and a net loss in June—the first such decrease since the pandemic winter of 2020. Inflation, meanwhile, remains a concern, with some sectors experiencing rising prices due to higher import costs and tariffs.
As the dust settles on this historic revision, Americans are left to grapple with a labor market that looks far less robust than they’d been told—and a political environment where trust in economic data is increasingly up for debate. The coming weeks, with a pivotal Fed meeting on the horizon and new leadership at the BLS on deck, promise more drama—and perhaps more surprises—for an economy still searching for solid ground.
