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Donald Trump’s Pants on Fire claim that Biden, Harris manipulated job data

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Donald Trump’s Pants on Fire claim that Biden, Harris manipulated job data

Louis Jacobson
 |  PolitiFact.com

Statement: “The Harris-Biden Administration has been caught fraudulently manipulating Job Statistics.”

The federal agency that calculates how many people are working handed Democrats an unwelcome present during the week of their national convention in Chicago: a downward adjustment of the past year’s employment gains by 818,000 jobs.

The job gains during the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been a bright spot in the economy despite stubbornly high inflation.

Former President Donald Trump, at an event Aug. 22 in Arizona’s Cochise County, used the talking point to hit Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, over the economy:

“I want to address the fake job numbers the Harris-Biden administration has been reporting for the last year. … They claimed falsely that they created 818,000 jobs,” Trump said. 

On Aug. 21 Trump shared a Truth Social post that went farther, alleging malfeasance by the administration:

“MASSIVE SCANDAL! The Harris-Biden Administration has been caught fraudulently manipulating Job Statistics to hide the true extent of the Economic Ruin they have inflicted upon America. New Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the Administration PADDED THE NUMBERS with an extra 818,000 Jobs that DO NOT EXIST, AND NEVER DID.”

The past year’s job numbers were recalibrated last week in a way that shows 818,000 fewer positions than were initially recorded. That’s down by half a percentage point for all jobs in the economy. 

However, economists across the ideological spectrum rejected Trump’s allegation that the administration was cooking the books. Rather, the process is an effort undertaken annually to fine-tune initial data the agency acknowledges is imperfect.

“There is zero validity to Trump’s claims,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum. “This is a standard, regular revision to the jobs data.”

What happened last week?

On Wednesday, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics announced an annual “benchmarking” adjustment based on a sweep of state-based unemployment insurance data. This is considered more precise than the employer-based data the agency uses to assemble its closely watched monthly employment reports.

Using this more precise unemployment insurance data, the agency found that there were 818,000 fewer jobs in March than had been initially announced. That was the largest downward revision to employment in 15 years, and it prompted some concern among economists that the economy could be weakening. This could bolster arguments that the Federal Reserve should lower interest rates at its September meeting.

When we contacted the Republican National Committee, spokesperson Anna Kelly said the Biden-Harris administration was passing “blame on the economic crisis she created.”

But the committee provided no evidence to support Trump’s allegation that the administration had been “caught fraudulently manipulating job statistics.”

This recalculation was not a ploy

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is staffed by trained civil servants and has not been credibly charged with political bias in the past. The procedures the agency uses for the recalibration are well-defined and have been used for years. 

It’s not a “conspiracy,” said Dean Baker, co-founder of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. “This is all a completely standard process that happens every year.”

Tara Sinclair, a George Washington University economist and former deputy assistant secretary for macroeconomics in the Treasury Department’s Office of Economic Policy, said the equivalent revisions released in 2019, when Trump was president, also “showed a notable reduction.” 

Economists “want complete information, but that takes more time, and it’s released on a regularly planned schedule,” Sinclair said.

The recently announced adjustment is preliminary and could change again, either up or down, before it becomes official in February.

PolitiFact’s ruling

Trump said, “The Harris-Biden Administration has been caught fraudulently manipulating Job Statistics.”

There’s no doubt that the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ routine revision of job numbers dampens Harris’ economic rhetoric. But there is zero evidence that the administration was playing with those numbers. Civil servants have compiled the data with the same methods on the same schedule for years.

Economists from across the ideological spectrum said they have seen no evidence of political meddling with the data.

Trump’s assertion is false and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire!

Our sources

  • Donald Trump, Truth Social post, Aug. 21, 2024
  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “CES Preliminary Benchmark Announcement,” Aug. 21, 2024
  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “2019 CES Preliminary Benchmark Revision,” accessed Aug. 21, 2024
  • Dean Baker, “Mixed Story: What the Revision to the Jobs Data Means,” Aug. 21, 2024
  • Email interview with Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, Aug. 22, 2024
  • Email interview with Tara Sinclair, George Washington University economist, Aug. 22, 2024
  • Email interview with Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Aug. 22, 2024
  • Email interview with Gary Burtless, senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, Aug. 22, 2024
  • Email interview with Anna Kelly, Republican National Committee spokesperson, Aug. 22, 2024
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