Another in an ongoing series:
Dear Senator McCormick;
I am a resident of Pennsylvania and a constituent of yours and I'd like you to answer a question or two.
A few days ago, The Hill reported this:
The U.S. added 258,000 fewer jobs in May and June than the Labor Department first reported, according to federal data released Friday.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued stunning revisions to its reports on May and June employment growth in an overall dismal July jobs report, drastically changing the picture of the U.S. economy.
The U.S. only added 19,000 jobs in May compared to an initial report of 144,000, and only 14,000 in June after an initial report of 147,000, according to the BLS. Those two paltry totals, plus a July jobs gain of 73,000, means the U.S. added just 106,000 jobs over the past three months.
And President Trump responded to the bad news badly. From The New York Times:
President Trump unleashed his fury about weakness in the labor market on Friday, saying without evidence that the data were “rigged” and that he was firing the Senate-confirmed Department of Labor official responsible for pulling together the numbers each month.
And:
The president fired Dr. McEntarfer after the bureau released monthly jobs data showing surprisingly weak hiring in July and large downward revisions to job growth in the previous two months. Economists widely interpreted the report as evidence that Mr. Trump’s policies were beginning to take a toll on the economy, though the president insisted in a subsequent post that the country was “doing GREAT!”
The president defended his actions, saying it was the right thing to do.
CNN posted an article describing the data BLS collects and how it constructs its monthly report if you want to see how supremely difficult it would be to "rig" the numbers.
So here are my questions. Is the president right? Do you agree that the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics was, in fact, rigged in order to embarrass Trump and the GOP? And, if this is all the case, just how were the numbers falsified?
I'll await your answer, Senator.
As always, whatever answer I get from the Senator, I'll post it here.
