In the bustling corridors of Washington, D.C., where policy and politics often collide, a single personnel decision has sent tremors far beyond the Beltway. On the heels of a tepid July 2025 jobs report, President Donald Trump dismissed Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). While the White House has weathered controversy before—sometimes by design, as former adviser Steve Bannon once described the strategy as “flood the zone”—this firing stands out for its profound implications on the integrity of federal data and, by extension, the nation’s ability to know itself.
For more than a century, the BLS has been a cornerstone of American governance, gathering and disseminating data on employment, wages, workplace injuries, and a host of other economic indicators. According to Lee Kennedy-Shaffer, a biostatistics educator at the Yale School of Public Health, “BLS has existed for more than 100 years, providing comprehensive economic data to the American people.” Its surveys, like the Current Population Survey and the National Longitudinal Surveys, underpin everything from academic research to the day-to-day decisions of policymakers, businesses, and ordinary Americans.
The importance of the BLS’s work is not lost on those who rely on its figures. Matt Varilek, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, underscored the foundational role of the unemployment rate. “If you ask, ‘What if you had to pick one figure that we refer to most often indicating the health of the economy,’ you might pick the unemployment rate,” Varilek told the media on August 9, 2025. That single number, he added, is “foundational”—not just for businesses and elected officials, but for federal funding formulas that directly impact states like Minnesota.
His view is echoed by Ryan Allen, associate dean of research at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Allen, who once helped create BLS reports himself, described employment data as “fundamental.” He explained, “People are paying attention to this number every month, the Federal Reserve is paying attention to this number every month.” It’s a data point that informs decisions at every level—from the kitchen table to the boardroom, and from statehouses to the halls of Congress.
Yet, the abrupt dismissal of McEntarfer has stoked fears that the reliability of these figures is under threat. According to Kennedy-Shaffer, the move “threatens the reliability of federal data critical for academic research, public health planning, and government decision-making.” The BLS, he notes, is not just a repository of employment figures; it is also the primary source of workplace injury, illness, and fatality data, as well as statistics on poverty and income inequality—key indicators for health and social well-being.
The ripple effects of undermining the BLS are vast. Needs assessments by health care facilities and state agencies depend on accurate demographic and economic data. Pharmaceutical companies plan their research and production based on trends in disease prevalence, often gleaned from federal surveys. Even students, learning the basics of biostatistics, are taught using BLS datasets. Kennedy-Shaffer recounted telling his own students, “one measure of the power of statistics is the way unscrupulous leaders attempt to shut them down when they do not like what the data reveal.”
This is not the first time the Trump administration has been accused of sidelining data-driven governance. During his first term, Trump forcibly relocated the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, resulting in a “massive loss of expertise,” according to Kennedy-Shaffer. The administration also attempted to add a citizenship question to the U.S. Census, a move widely criticized for its potential to undercount certain populations and skew the data that guides everything from congressional apportionment to federal funding.
In his second term, the pattern appears to have intensified. Trump and his Republican allies have reportedly purged federal websites of key datasets on climate, health, and other topics, while eliminating research and evaluation offices. The concern, as Kennedy-Shaffer warned, is that “continued politicization of data will impede planning, exacerbate disparities, and reduce national security and health.”
The firing of McEntarfer, in this context, is seen by many as a warning shot to other federal statistical agencies. The Census Bureau—the only agency larger than the BLS in the federal statistical system—currently lacks a permanent director. “Whoever Trump appoints to lead the Census Bureau will certainly know that their job is at risk if he does not like the results of the next American Community Survey or another release,” Kennedy-Shaffer wrote. The same logic, he argued, could apply to the National Center for Health Statistics, especially if its data were to reflect poorly on the administration’s agenda.
Such politicization of data is not without precedent. Kennedy-Shaffer drew historical parallels, recalling how, in 1937, Joseph Stalin’s regime arrested and executed statisticians to suppress census results that revealed high mortality from famine. More recently, the Greek government prosecuted the head of its national statistics agency for accurately revising economic data. “Thankfully, there have been no arrests or prosecutions in the U.S. yet,” Kennedy-Shaffer noted, but he warned that “a statistician will certainly not be immune” if the trend continues.
Despite the gravity of these concerns, the broader public may not immediately grasp the stakes. After all, the firing of one official might seem minor compared to other headline-grabbing events. Yet, as Kennedy-Shaffer pointed out, “the modern state, and the lives of everyone within it, are entwined with these crucial data sources.” The word “state,” he reminded his students, is at the root of “statistics.” Without trustworthy data, the nation risks flying blind—unable to see the true contours of its economy, its health, or its social fabric.
State and local governments, as well as businesses and nonprofits, continue to rely on federal data, even as some federal agencies move away from data-driven decisions or cherry-pick their own numbers. But if the trend of sidelining expertise and suppressing inconvenient facts persists, the foundation of that trust may erode. “If we allow Trump and the Republicans to continue down this path, we will soon find ourselves knowing much less about the country and the world in which we live,” Kennedy-Shaffer warned. The loss, he argued, would not only impede planning and decision-making but would also “exacerbate disparities, and hide important trends. And that will make us all less secure and less healthy.”
As the dust settles in Washington, the debate over federal data is far from academic. It is, at its core, a battle over the nation’s ability to see itself clearly—and to act wisely in response. For now, the integrity of America’s numbers, and the future they help shape, hangs in the balance.
