The Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has opened a formal investigation into the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) following two years of major downward job data revisions that critics say distorted the true state of the U.S. economy. The move comes amid growing scrutiny from the Trump administration, which recently fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after accusing her of politicizing economic data.
In August, President Donald Trump removed McEntarfer and nominated economist E.J. Antoni, a known critic of the bureau’s methodology, to lead the agency. The White House cited the BLS’s August jobs report and a massive 911,000-job downward revision to previous data as justification for the shake-up.
According to Assistant Inspector General Laura Nicolosi, the probe will examine “challenges” the BLS faces in collecting and revising high-stakes economic data, including inflation and employment reports. The watchdog will focus specifically on how the BLS handles the Producer Price Index (PPI), Consumer Price Index (CPI), and the monthly Employment Situation Report.
This year’s revision—the largest ever recorded—slashed more than 900,000 jobs from prior estimates for the year ending March 2025. That followed another adjustment in February 2025 that wiped out nearly 600,000 jobs from the 2024 count. Critics argue the consistent overstatement bolstered the Biden administration’s narrative of economic recovery—now proven false.
Breitbart’s John Carney called the trend “a myth created to explain a mismatch between sentiment and statistics,” adding that voters rightly sensed economic weakness while official reports falsely signaled strength. “If there’s a reason Trump is back in the Oval Office, this is it,” Carney wrote.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer agreed, saying the revisions undermine public trust. “It’s imperative for the data to remain accurate, impartial, and never altered for political gain,” she said Tuesday.
