Women in Workforce

If deprived of monthly jobs data, economists and policymakers would have no way of knowing how policy is affecting marginalized groups of workers. (Credit: Mizuno K, Pexels) This story was originally reported by Chabeli Carrazana of The 19th. Meet Chabeli and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy. Reliably on the first Friday of every month for the past 50 years, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has released data on how women of color are faring in the economy. It’s the only timely source of this demographic-level data. Without it, economists and policymakers would have no way of knowing how economic policy is affecting marginalized groups of workers in real time. They’d be flying blind on how to help them. But that’s just what President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the bureau is suggesting doing. On August 1, Trump fired the head of the bureau, Erika McEntarfer, after BLS published one of the largest revisions to its data in decades. The revision showed that the economy was in fact weaker than previously reported, leading Trump to accuse McEntarfer of tampering with the data to make his administration look bad. Revisions of economic data have also always been part of how BLS, an independent and nonpartisan agency, functions. The data is collected from surveys of employers and households, and then published in three waves. The surveys are voluntary, so not all responses come in on time. BLS publishes an initial release and then revises in the subsequent two months as more responses come in. It's done this way to ensure that markets and economists get real-time data on the economy. Since the pandemic, BLS has been struggling with lagging response rates and a rapidly changing economy that has led to larger revisions. The reports are still considered one of the most reliable sources of U.S. economic data in the world. McEntarfer, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden and was confirmed in a nearly unanimous Senate vote, is a widely respected economist who had worked in the federal government under multiple administrations. Trump’s nominee to replace her, E.J. Antoni, is an economist at the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation who contributed to Project 2025. Discussing the employment data earlier this month, Antoni suggested that until the data is “corrected,” “the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier this week that the Trump administration had noted Antoni's suggestions but intended to continue issuing the monthly reports. “I believe that is the plan, and that’s the hope, and that these monthly reports will be data that the American people can trust,” Leavitt said. Losing timely economic data, particularly at a time when the economy is showing signs of softening, is bad for every group, economists told The 19th. But it could disproportionately impact women and women of color, who are often the first to feel the impact of weakness in the economy and serve as a bellwether of what is to come. “The household survey is really the only source for intersectional employment data on a monthly basis. That means that for groups of women we and others have been watching especially closely during this period — for example, disabled women, Black women, women veterans — timely information about these groups would disappear,” said Katherine Gallagher Robbins, a senior fellow at the National Partnership for Women & Families who routinely analyzes the data. The National Women’s Law Center, which also publishes its monthly analysis of women in the workforce using BLS’ data, said in a statement that "losing this impartial data will undermine efforts to improve women’s economic wellbeing, damage the credibility and reliability of data coming from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and hurt overall efforts to objectively assess the health of our economy.” Already, BLS monthly data was showing that unemployment rates for Black workers were starting to creep back up, indicating the economy might not be as strong as some assumed. For the past four months, the unemployment rate for Black women has shot up, drawing economists to analyze what may be driving the increase. Some of it, they suspect, is due to a disproportionate impact from cuts to federal jobs and diversity, equity and inclusion positions. The monthly data was one of the only statistical measures that was capturing that change. “Black workers' unemployment rates are particularly sensitive to economy-wide changes. The national data in the monthly jobs report provides a timely opportunity to understand which workers, by race, gender, and age, are falling through the cracks nationwide, so that decision-makers can respond accordingly, hopefully before the economy crashes,” said Jessica Fulton, a senior fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank focused on Black Americans. Part of Trump’s gripe with the data was a massive downward revision. Instead of the economy adding more 140,000 jobs in May and nearly 150,000 in June, it actually only added a tenth of that each month. The revision is on the high end of what is typical, but not impossible. Confidence intervals for the data is plus or minus 136,000 jobs — the initial estimate can be off by that much. Multiple downward revisions, however, is typically a sign that the economy is weakening. When that happens, the data for workers who are the most vulnerable can give economists a heads up on what’s coming for everyone else. “It is going to be more difficult for us to identify red flags or canaries in coal mines if we have less statistics and data being made public,” said Misty Heggeness, an associate professor at the University of Kansas and former principal economist at the Census Bureau. “It will be easier for this administration to hide the impact of their actions on the community at large. Since their policies tend to disproportionately have a negative impact on people with less power and privilege, we will know and understand less about this impact if less data is made available.” The Trump administration has been focused on reducing mentions of race and gender, limiting gender-focused data collection and reducing federal assistance for the most marginalized groups, including through major cuts to Medicaid and food assistance. Those populations will also be the first to feel the impact of an economy in contraction. During the COVID pandemic for example, women and women of color, especially, experienced the most job loss of any group — a phenomenon that was only statistically apparent thanks to the monthly data. With so much focus during that time on women’s job loss and the factors driving it — namely, a breakdown in caregiving assistance — the federal government secured a historic infusion into the child care sector that reopened day cares and helped women return to work. Kate Bahn, the chief economist and senior vice president of research at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, said the data is critical in order to ensure government policy isn’t hurting some groups more than others. Put simply: “Accurate data forces accountability.” Without the monthly data, there are several other sources economists can turn to, but most show trends from months or even a year prior. They’re valuable sources of information, and good for in-depth subject analysis, but they can’t replace what the month-to-month data offers, which is capturing trends as they emerge. BLS has also sought improvements to the way it collects data; the agency has been making the case for years that it needs better funding to modernize its systems and make it easier to respond to surveys. Statistical models may also need to be revamped to consider changes to the structure of the economy brought on by the pandemic, the growth of the gig economy and changing immigration patterns. But BLS’ budget has actually been declining over the past couple of years, tumbling 18 percent when adjusted for inflation since 2009. Trump’s budget proposal cuts it by 8 percent year-over-year. And other efforts to improve statistical data have also been thwarted by the Trump administration. In February, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick dissolved the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee, which was working to improve economic data produced by BLS, the Census and other statistical agencies. The shakeup at BLS, starting with the firing of McEntarfer, has drawn criticism from economists and experts on both sides of the aisle. Nancy Potok, the chief statistician during the first Trump administration, told The New York Times that the solution to the problems with data collection “is not to fire the head of BLS but to make the immediate investments in the federal statistical system.”

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