EJ Antoni, US President Donald Trump’s candidate, leads the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that generates employment and inflation data in the country, and has been caught up in criticism from economists.
Antoni is the Chief Economist of the Conservative Heritage Foundation and author of Project 2025, and has listed think tanks created for the far-right wish list, then Trump or the next Republican president.
His choices have threatened to bring a new level of politicization to producers of economic health measures, which have been widely regarded as nonpartisan and trustworthy institutions for decades.
“Trump has appointed him a sycophantant to tell him exactly what he wants to hear. Don’t make any mistakes. This choice is a clear attack on an independent analysis that has widespread impact on the reliability of US economic data,” said Alex Jaquez, a member of the White House National Economic Council under former President Joe Biden, in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.
Many former Labor Bureau officials say that Antoni is unlikely to distort or change the data, but they can change the way they are currently dry, especially in the short term.
Antoni was appointed by Trump after the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its employment report on August 1. Trump fired then-BLS chairman Erica Mantelfer, accusing the data of being “equipped” for political reasons without evidence.
“The person responsible for reporting accurate data that violates the administration is straight from an authoritarian playbook. This is an attempt to mislead the American people, avoid being bound to explain history and avoid rewriting history,” Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow at the Center for City-Tax Policy, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.
Antoni’s nomination argues that gas prices are lower than before and are mathematically impossible numbers, including a 400% fall in egg prices as Trump continues to spin manufacturing across US economic data.
Government Data Critics
Antoni is a voice critic of government employment data that frequently appeared on podcasts and cable television. His partisan commentary is unusual for anyone who could lead the BLS.
On August 4, a week before he was appointed, Antoni said in an interview with Fox News Digital that the Labor Department would halt its monthly employment reports until the data collection process improves, relying on quarterly data based on actual employment returns to state unemployment offices.
Monthly employment reports are perhaps Wall Street’s most closely watched economic data, and can often cause stock prices to fluctuate.
When asked at the White House on Tuesday, when he explained whether the employment report would continue to be released, Executive Director Caroline Leavitt said he wanted the administration to do so.
“That’s the plan and I think that’s the hope,” Levitt said.
Leavitt also defended Antoni’s appointment and called him an “economic expert” who testified before Congress, adding that “the president trusts him to lead this important division.”
However, the appearance of Antoni’s television and podcasts created more conservative ideologue portraits in place of a careful economist who considers trade-offs and prioritizes getting math right.
Brian Albrecht, chief economist at the Center for International Law and Economics, said:
Antoni falsely claimed last year, Biden’s presidency, that the economy had been in a recession since 2022. He urged the entire Federal Reserve Commission to be fired for not gaining the benefit of holding Treasury securities. He posted a chart on social media, confusing the timeline to suggest that inflation was heading towards 15%.
His assertion that the United States was in a recession rests on a highly exaggerated measure of housing inflation based on newly purchased home prices, artificially pretending the domestic gross domestic product.
“This may actually be the worst Antoni content I’ve seen yet,” Centre Light Tax Foundation’s Alan Cole said of social media, referring to his claims of recession.
In the 2024 podcast, Antoni wanted to pay Social Security to workers paying for the system. As head of BLS, Antoni oversees the release of the Consumer Price Index, where Social Security payments are adjusted for inflation.
Faulty data
To some extent, many economists share Antoni’s concern that government employment data is flawed and threatened by trends such as declining survey response rates. The decline has made the job numbers more unstable, but they are not necessarily accurate over time.
“The stock market moves clearly based on these job numbers, so I think people with game skin are saying something about the future of investment,” says Albrecht. “Can I improve it? Absolutely.”
Katherine Abraham, BLS commissioner for President Bill Clinton, an economist at the University of Maryland, said that updating the employment reporting method requires at least some initial investment.
The government can use more modern data sources, such as payroll processing companies’ figures, and surveys can fill the gaps, she said.
“There’s a contradiction in mentioning that they need a higher response rate and want to spend less money and the administration’s proposal to cut BLS funds,” she said.
Still, Abraham and other former BLS commissioners don’t think that even if Antoni is confirmed, they can change the numbers. He was able to drive changes to his monthly press releases and try to portray the numbers from a more positive perspective.
William Beach, who was appointed BLS Commissioner by Trump in his first term and served under Biden, said he is confident that the BLS procedures are strong enough to prevent political interference. He said he didn’t see the numbers until two days before publication when he served as commissioner.
“Commissioners don’t affect numbers,” Beach said. “They don’t collect data. They don’t massage the data. They don’t organize it.”
Regarding the odds of rigging numbers, Beach said, “I wouldn’t make it a perfect zero, but I’d make it pretty close to zero.”
It has been about six months since Mcentarfer was appointed to be approved in July 2023. Antoni will likely face harsh opposition from the Democrats, but that may not be enough to derail his appointment.
Sen. Patty Murray, a senior Democrat from Washington, denounced Antoni on Tuesday as “unqualified right-wing extremists,” demanding Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, GOP chair of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, holds a confirmation hearing for him.
