Yesterday, Trump announced that he will nominate E.J. Antoni as the next commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Antoni has repeatedly and unfairly attacked the agency he’d be set to run, contributed to the right-wing Project 2025 policy blueprint, and in his role at the Heritage Foundation has stretched the truth about the economy to make partisan political claims. This comes after Trump fired the former BLS commissioner after the monthly jobs numbers released in early August showed a sharp slowdown in the pace of U.S. job growth. Trump’s announcement makes it clear that he expects the BLS commissioner to only release data that shows the economy is booming—even if it means the data must be manipulated or changed by political appointees. This move is undemocratic—and economically dangerous.

BLS is one of the most respected statistical agencies in the world, known for its methodological rigor, independence, and transparency. It has long produced reliable economic data that are a crucial input to economic decisions across the country. The economy runs on reliable data. Businesses use these numbers to decide whether to hire or expand. The Federal Reserve uses them to decide when and how much to change interest rates. State and local governments use them to plan budgets. Trump’s attempt to politicize BLS means that policymakers and the public wouldn’t be able to trust the data. If this happens, confidence in U.S. data will collapse and reasonable economic decision-making will be impossible. This manufactured chaos will reduce business investment and consumer spending, making a recession—and soaring unemployment—far more likely in coming months. Between illegal firings of public servants, starving data agencies of needed resources, and now political intimidation, the U.S. looks set to run into the next economic downturn flying blind. The cost of this incompetence will be felt by working people first.

This post was originally published on Common Dreams.