{"id":144976,"date":"2025-08-14T11:45:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T11:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/144976\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T11:45:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T11:45:19","slug":"did-doge-contribute-to-the-bls-jobs-report-that-trump-hated-economist-mark-zandi-thinks-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/144976\/","title":{"rendered":"Did DOGE contribute to the BLS jobs report that Trump hated? Economist Mark Zandi thinks so"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk\u2019s DOGE may have completed much of its work in the federal bureaucracy, but the trickle-down effect from Musk\u2019s chain saw contributed to the downward employment revisions that drew President Trump\u2019s ire and led to the now-infamous firing of the labor statistics commissioner.<\/p>\n

DOGE\u2019s cuts to government jobs are contributing to downward employment revisions because the government typically reports its payrolls to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) late, and increasingly later reports often lead to bigger revisions, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody\u2019s Analytics, told\u00a0Fortune. He noted that the government does not report in time for the initial employment estimate provided by the BLS.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis didn\u2019t matter much when government employment was stable, but now that government jobs are declining, the cuts are being picked up in the revisions,\u201d Zandi said. He added that DOGE\u2019s impact also extends to the statistical agencies themselves, including the BLS, where staff reductions slow the processing of employment records and lead to larger subsequent revisions.<\/p>\n

According to the BLS, July\u2019s employment report<\/a> (released Aug. 1) showed a modest addition of 73,000 jobs. More strikingly, job gains from May and June were sharply revised downward by a combined 258,000. With employment rising by only 19,000 in May and 14,000 in June, the three-month average payroll growth dropped to just 35,000\u2014down from 123,000 a year earlier.<\/p>\n

Amid intensifying scrutiny over deteriorating employment figures, President Trump on Aug. 1 ordered the firing<\/a> of Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the BLS.<\/p>\n

Regarding the economy, Pantheon Macroeconomics found that DOGE cuts knocked approximately 0.3 percentage points from U.S. GDP growth in Q2, primarily due to an 11.2% drop in federal nondefense spending\u2014a direct result of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) reductions. Analysts believe government spending will remain roughly flat in Q3, as small gains in state, local, and defense spending are offset by a further 5%-to-10% drop in the federal nondefense component.<\/p>\n

Zandi believes sustained DOGE cuts increase the odds of a recession. \u201cThe DOGE cuts likely act more like a corrosive on the economy than a cliff event, resulting in recession,\u201d he said. Meanwhile, policies like higher tariffs or restrictive immigration rules would likely have a much more sudden and damaging impact on the economy, potentially causing a recession directly, Zandi said.<\/p>\n

Beyond the numbers, Zandi flagged deeper risks stemming from DOGE\u2019s workforce reductions. He warned that slashing jobs at statistical agencies is already degrading the quality of federal data\u2014a symptom of wider unintended consequences for government services.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment workers have important jobs that are critical to providing important services to taxpayers,\u201d Zandi said. \u201cIf jobs are cut and those services aren\u2019t provided or aren\u2019t provided in a timely and competent way, there can be significant negative fallout.\u201d<\/p>\n

He cited examples ranging from weather reporting vital to disaster response to food-safety inspections that safeguard the national food supply.<\/p>\n

Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500<\/strong>, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon Musk\u2019s DOGE may have completed much of its work in the federal bureaucracy, but the trickle-down effect…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":144977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,420,5409,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-144976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-jobs","10":"tag-u-s-politics","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115026953783007267","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}