The House Education and the Workforce Committee is unlikely to fulfill a request from House Democrats to hold a congressional hearing on President Donald Trump‘s decision to fire the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner over a weak jobs report last week.
A committee spokesperson brushed aside a letter from ranking member Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) asking for a hearing on the firing when asked for comment by the Washington Examiner.
“BLS has a long history of botching the release of jobs numbers,” the spokesperson said, linking to multiple letters sent by then-chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) to then-Labor Secretary Julie Su in September and October 2024.
“If Democrats are so concerned with the integrity of the jobs data, where was their outrage then?” the spokesperson continued.
The spokesperson confirmed to the Washington Examiner that there won’t be a planned hearing on the firing as of now.
In a letter sent Wednesday, Scott and DeSaulnier requested that Committee Chairman Tim Walberg schedule a hearing “this month” into the firing of commissioner Erika McEntarfer, which they argue happened “without any evidence of any misconduct.”
“Given the abrupt termination, Committee Members deserve the opportunity to understand why the termination took place and examine whether this abrupt firing will impact operations,” the Democrats wrote in the letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.
The Democrats wrote that while Trump has the authority to remove the commissioner, they believe the timing is “alarming.” McEntarfer was fired on Friday after the BLS report showed hiring had slowed significantly over the past three months. The report detailed that the U.S. economy added just 73,000 jobs in July, well below estimated numbers, and revised May and June figures because they were lower than previously announced by more than 200,000 jobs.
Trump said the reports are “being produced by Biden appointee” and claimed that the numbers were being manipulated for political purposes.
“In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” the president wrote, without providing proof for the claim.
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“This statement is only one of many the President has made that seeks to undermine the public’s confidence in BLS’s objectivity, and this explicitly retaliatory action suggests the President is unconcerned with ensuring the economic realities facing families are accurately reflected in the numbers,” Scott and DeSaulnier wrote.
“BLS has long provided relevant and timely data, and we must ensure neither political influence nor a lack of resources disrupts the quality of these important data releases,” the congressman added.