Nationwide Financial Council Director Kevin Hassett discusses the newest jobs report, the firing of the labor statistics chief and the buyer impression of tariffs on ‘Fox Information Sunday.’
Nationwide Financial Council Director Kevin Hassett on Sunday backed President Donald Trump’s determination to fireside the top of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), citing an alleged “partisan sample” in U.S. job information reporting.
In an look on “Fox Information Sunday,” Hassett referenced the timing of a preliminary benchmark revision launched in August 2024 – shortly after former President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. The revision revealed that job positive factors from March 2023 via March 2024 had been overstated by 818,000 jobs. Hassett mentioned it represented the “greatest information revision in 50 years.”
“Look, the very fact is that when the info are unreliable, after they hold being revised in all places, then there are going to be folks that marvel if there is a partisan sample within the information,” Hassett informed “Fox Information Sunday” host Shannon Bream. “And so, when you look again to only a yr in the past, for instance, there was one other huge revision from the BLS, nearly 1,000,000 jobs, 1,000,000 jobs down, that mentioned that the Joe Biden jobs report was quite a bit worse than folks thought. However we did not get the downward revision till after Joe Biden had dropped out. And so as soon as once more, it made folks suppose, what are they doing?”
Hassett accused the BLS of a scarcity of transparency, saying the bureau didn’t present any detailed clarification of the August 2024 revision.
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Kevin Hassett, director of the Nationwide Financial Council, exterior the White Home in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, June 30, 2025. (Aaron Scwartz/CNP/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures / Getty Pictures)
“As an alternative, they’ve this little black field that strikes the numbers round and makes folks marvel, typically with partisan patterns. And so I feel what we want is a recent set of eyes on the BLS, someone who can clear this factor up,” Hassett mentioned.
The White Home financial adviser made reference to his speech on the 2015 BLS symposium the place he spoke about modernization on the a hundredth anniversary of the Shopper Expenditure Survey.
“I talked about how the info cannot be propaganda,” Hassett mentioned. “The information needs to be one thing which you can belief as a result of determination makers all through the financial system belief that these are the info, that they will construct a manufacturing facility as a result of they imagine, or minimize rates of interest as a result of they believed. And if the info aren’t that good, then it is an actual drawback for the U.S. And proper now, the info have grow to be very unreliable with these huge revisions over the previous few years.”
The BLS reported on Friday that 74,000 jobs have been added in July, nicely under the 110,000 estimate of economists polled by LSEG. The report additionally revised job progress in Could and June downward. Could’s positive factors have been pared again by 125,000 to only 19,000 jobs created, whereas the June figures have been revised down by 133,000 to only 14,000 jobs added that month.
President Donald Trump speaks to the media earlier than boarding Marine One on the South Garden of the White Home in Washington D.C., on Aug. 1, 2025. (MEHMET ESER/Center East Pictures/AFP by way of Getty Pictures / Getty Pictures)
In response to the BLS, the final time a revision was down greater than 133,000 was in March 2021, when it was revised down by 146,000 one yr into the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Trump claimed that the nation’s job numbers “are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfar, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers earlier than the Election to attempt to enhance Kamala’s possibilities of Victory.” McEntarfar was appointed by Biden however obtained bipartisan assist within the Senate earlier in 2024, with present Vice President JD Vance amongst Republican senators who supported her earlier than he earned a spot on Trump’s presidential ticket.
Regardless of the “disappointing” jobs report, Hassett pointed to how the Bureau of Financial Evaluation (BEA) reported on July 30 that GDP elevated at an annual fee of three.0% within the second quarter.
President Donald J. Trump departs the White Home en path to Bedminster, New Jersey, on Aug. 1, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (ANDREW THOMAS/Center East Pictures/AFP by way of Getty Pictures / Getty Pictures)
“It is actually essential to maintain our eyes on the horizon and the eyes on the horizon are seeing actually clean crusing forward,” Hassett mentioned. “After I first noticed the large revisions, which, by the best way, have been the most important revisions going all the best way again for 50 years, if we exclude the COVID years, once I noticed these revisions I believed it should be a typo. That I’ve by no means seen a revision like this.”
Hassett argued that Trump’s “huge, stunning invoice” would offset any impacts of tariffs on the U.S. financial system and enhance common household revenue by $10,000.
“The Congressional Finances Workplace has mentioned that we’re about three trillion in new tariffs in america. That is one thing that is actually going to assist us steadiness the price range. And all inflation numbers are decrease than they have been in 5 years,” he mentioned.
He additionally additional backed the president’s name for brand new management on the bureau.
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“They should get again to floor zero and take a look at why the numbers have began to be so unreliable. And, you understand, why did the numbers probably not choose up the gig financial system and so forth,” Hassett mentioned. “So proper now we have BLS numbers that are not actually quite a bit higher than they have been throughout COVID, and we have to perceive why. And so I feel that the president’s proper to name for brand new management. I feel Erika is a terrific individual, however I feel that it is time for somebody to get in there and repair this as a result of these numbers are so essential. “
FOX Enterprise’ Eric Revell contributed to this report.
