BLS
Understanding the Shake Up at the BLS and Other Topics
On October 30, COSSA hosted the next installment in the 2025 Headlines Webinar series. The COSSA team was joined by special guest Dr. Erica Groshen to discuss the ongoing challenges facing the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the broader federal statistical system. View the Slides Not a COSSA member? Learn more about how your association or university can join here.
REGISTER NOW: Headlines Webinar on October 30
On October 30, join COSSA for the next installment in the 2025 Headlines Webinar series. The COSSA team will be joined by special guest Dr. Erica Groshen to discuss the ongoing challenges facing the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the broader federal statistical system (read recent COSSA coverage). The COSSA team will also discuss other timely developments. Register now and join the conversation. Headlines is a webinar series available to COSSA member organizations. Watch for additional webinar announcements, and previous webinar recordings, on the COSSA website.
ICYMI: Trump Rescinds BLS Nomination
On September 30, the Trump Administration’s nomination for Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), EJ Antoni, was rescinded. As previously reported by COSSA, President Trump fired Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after the initial release of the August jobs report and accused her of falsifying the released data. While the agency has continued operations in the absence of a commissioner, BLS will not be releasing the monthly jobs report during the government shutdown (see related article). It is currently unclear who President Trump intends to nominate in Antoni’s place. Follow COSSA’s continued coverage on BLS here.
White House Doubles Down on Accusations of BLS Data Being Falsified
On September 5, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a downward revision of the jobs report. Ahead of the release of the jobs report, the Friends of BLS coalition released a Q&A about the job report, which details how the report is estimated and revised in a transparent and objective manner. However, the Administration published the article, BLS Revisions Show President Trump Was Right — Again, and again baselessly claimed that the jobs report was falsified. As a reminder, the Trump Administration fired Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after the last jobs report was released with similar findings (see previous COSSA coverage). On September 11, the…
ICYMI: Trump Nominates E.J. Antoni for BLS Commissioner
President Trump has nominated E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) after abruptly firing and baselessly accusing Commissioner Erika McEntarfer of deliberately reporting false numbers in the latest Employment Situation report (see previous COSSA coverage). Antoni comes from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, where he served as a Chief Economist and contributed to Project 2025. He holds a master’s and PhD in economics from Northern Illinois University. The Senate Health, Education, and Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) is rumored to hold a confirmation hearing for Antoni sometime this month. While the role does require Senate confirmation, it’s…
Trump Fires BLS Commissioner After Accusing Her of Falsifying Data
On August 1, President Trump abruptly fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after baselessly accusing her of deliberately reporting false numbers in the Employment Situation report released that morning. The White House released an accompanying statement in which the Administration accused McEntarfer of having a “lengthy history of inaccuracies” that harmed the public’s trust in the agency. This unprecedented removal of a Congressionally-approved agency head greatly undermines the credibility of the federal economic statistical enterprise, which has been the gold standard for U.S. labor data collection for almost 150 years. COSSA joins the Friends of the Bureau of…
BLS and Census Bureau Pause Decrease in CPS Sample Size Following Friends of BLS Letter
As previously reported by COSSA, the Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) coalition sent a letter urging the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to modernize the Current Population Survey (CPS) with additional funding in FY 2025. On October 29, BLS and the Census Bureau, who jointly sponsor the survey, announced that they have paused intent to decrease the CPS sample size in January 2025. A $6 million anomaly in the continuing resolution (CR) passed by Congress in late September (see previous COSSA coverage here) was provided to fund the sample size assuming the funding remains in any final bills or future CR’s passed by Congress…
Friends of BLS Urge Congress to Provide Appropriations for Modernizing CPS
On September 24, the Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), of which COSSA is a member, urged the House and Senate Appropriations Committees through a sign-on letter to modernize the Current Population Survey (CPS) with additional funding in fiscal year (FY) 2025. Jointly sponsored by BLS and the Census Bureau, CPS collects labor force statistics data to help inform the status of the social and economic welfare of the country. Two years of flat funding have required CPS to decrease the sample size of the population survey, creating a detrimental impact on important federal data collection. With 120 signatures, the letter details…
Senate Makes Progress on FY 2020 Appropriations for NSF, Census, NIH, Education, USDA
With the passage of a continuing resolution through Thanksgiving giving Congress some breathing room to complete fiscal year (FY) 2020 appropriations, the Senate Appropriations Committee has finally made progress in approving a number of its annual appropriations bills. COSSA has released analyses of three Senate bills that fund agencies important to the social and behavioral sciences: Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, which funds the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), and Census Bureau Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, which funds the National Institutes of…
COSSA Submits Testimony to Senate in Support of Funding for NIH, CDC, ED, BLS
As it does each year, COSSA submitted outside witness testimony to the Congressional Appropriations subcommittees responsible for funding federal agencies important to the social sciences. On June 3, COSSA submitted testimony to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies calling for increased fiscal year (FY) 2020 funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Institute for Education Sciences (IES), and International Education and Foreign Language Programs (Title VI and…
House Committee Approves FY 2020 Spending for NIH, CDC, BLS, AHRQ, ED
On May 8, the House Appropriations Committee approved its fiscal year (FY) 2020 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Bill; the Labor-HHS Subcommittee advanced the bill on April 30. This bill contains annual funding proposals for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Education (ED), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), among other federal departments and agencies. In a departure from what has become regular practice, the Labor-HHS bill was one of the first out the gate this year; the…
William Beach Confirmed as BLS Commissioner
On March 13, William Beach was confirmed as the next Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a protracted wait. Beach was originally nominated by the Trump Administration in October 2017 (see COSSA’s previous coverage). He is an economist who spent much of his career at conservative think tanks and was most recently Vice President at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. He also spent several years as Chief Economist for the Senate Budget Committee Republican Staff and has been involved in the evidence-based policy-making activities of the last several years. The Friends of BLS, of which COSSA is a…
House Committee Approves FY 2019 Labor-HHS-Education Funding
On July 11, the full House Appropriations Committee approved its fiscal year (FY) 2019 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Bill; the Labor-HHS Subcommittee advanced the bill on June 15. This bill contains annual funding proposals for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Education (ED), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), among other federal departments and agencies. The Senate Appropriations Committee reported its version of the bill on June 28 (more here). At a Glance… The House bill includes…
BLS Releases New Data on the “Gig Economy”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has released new data on contingent and alternative employment arrangements, the first data of its kind released since 2005. The data includes totals for contingent workers (whose jobs are temporary or otherwise not expected to last), independent contractors, on-call workers, temp workers, and workers provided by contract firms. In addition to this data, BLS is testing questions on short-term work found through websites or mobile apps and expects to release data on this population in September. More information about the release is available on the BLS website.
BLS Technical Advisory Committee Accepting Nominations
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Technical Advisory Committee is accepting nominations to fill five upcoming vacancies. The Committee advises the Bureau on technical aspects of data collection and the formulation of economic measures and makes recommendations on areas of research. BLS is interested in candidates who have a strong familiarity with BLS data and economic statistics. Nominations should be submitted by January 5, 2018. More information is available in the Federal Register notice. Back to this issue’s table of contents.
William Beach, Former Budget Committee Economist, Nominated as BLS Commissioner
The White House has nominated William Beach for a four-year term as Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), succeeding Erica Groshen, whose term expired in January, and William J. Wiatrowski, the Acting Commissioner since Groshen’s departure. Currently Vice President for Policy Research at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, Beach holds a Ph.D. in economics from the UK’s Buckingham University. Prior to joining the Mercatus Center, Beach served as the Chief Economist for the Senate Budget Committee’s Republican staff and the Lazof Family Fellow in Economics director of the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation. BLS Commissioners…
Senate Labor-HHS-Education Bill Approved by Committee
On September 7, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its fiscal year (FY) 2018 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Bill; the Labor-HHS Subcommittee advanced the bill on September 5. This bill contains annual funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Education (ED), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), among other federal departments and agencies. The House Appropriations Committee passed its version of the bill on July 19; the bill recently passed the House as part of a 12-bill…
Preliminary Details of House Labor-HHS Bill Released
On July 7, the House Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Subcommittee passed its fiscal year (FY) 2017 appropriations bill for agencies and programs under its jurisdiction, which include the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Department of Education, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), among others. While text of the draft appropriations bill was released to coincide with the Subcommittee markup, the Committee Report is not expected to be released until the bill is marked up by the full Appropriations Committee on…
Senate Presses Forward on 2017 Spending Bills
The Senate Appropriations Committee has been making progress over the last several weeks on its fiscal year (FY) 2017 appropriations bills in an effort to pass as many of the bills as possible before heading home in mid-July for the party conventions and August recess (follow all of the developments on the COSSA website). The FY 2017 Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations Bill, which made it out of Committee on April 21, is expected to be on the Senate floor later this week. Stay tuned – COSSA will be closely monitoring the floor debate as this is when we could…
Senate Bill Seeks Flat Funding for NSF, NIJ for FY 2017
On April 21, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the fiscal year (FY) 2017 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) Appropriations Bill. This bill serves as the vehicle for annual appropriations for the National Science Foundation (NSF), Census Bureau, National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), and countless other federal departments and agencies. The next step for the CJS bill is consideration on the Senate floor, which has not yet been scheduled. The bill would provide NSF with a total budget of $7.5 billion in FY 2017, flat with the FY 2016 enacted level. Most notably the Senate bill does…