GOP senators demand answers after grim revision says US added 818K fewer jobs
A group of Republican senators is demanding answers into how President Biden’s Department of Labor severely overestimated the number of new jobs created over the past year — after the agency made its largest preliminary downward revision to US payroll figures since 2009.
The revised figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released Wednesday, suggested that there were actually 818,000 fewer jobs during the 12 months ending in March than were initially reported.
That means that the reported job growth during that period was likely around 30% less.
While the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics often makes revisions to its estimates, the GOP senators argued the eye-bulging adjustment was unusually large.
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who is leading the charge, said the public deserves an investigation into whether it was intentional foul play.
“Using taxpayer dollars to mislead the public for political gain is an outrageous betrayal of trust and one of the reasons Americans have lost all faith in this Administration,” Marshall told The Post.
“Manipulating the numbers to spin a false narrative while people are struggling to afford gas and groceries is not only dishonest — it’s insulting.”
The Post has not seen evidence that political motivations were at play with the monster revision or that it was intentional.
The Kansas Republican was joined in the letter seeking answers by Sens. Ted Budd (R-NC), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).
“These misleading numbers created a false impression for the public and cast doubt on the validity of the Bureau’s accuracy and legitimacy,” the senators wrote in a letter to the Labor Department’s acting director Julie Su.
“As we approach the presidential election in approximately 70 days, the state of the economy is one of the major issues on [Americans’] minds. There should be no confusion when it comes to evaluating the health of our economy,” the senators added.
The revision marks the largest of its kind since 2009 when 824,000 jobs were overstated.
In total, the BLS is estimating that 2.1 million jobs were added to the US economy during the 12-month period ending March 2024, rather than the 2.9 million previously reported — a downward revision of 28%.
Marshall and the other Republicans are demanding more specific data on the revisions.
They want to know how many jobs were recouped from the COVID-19 pandemic, how many new jobs were full-time and part-time, as well as how many new jobs were in government positions.
The senators gave Su until Sept. 9 to respond to their request.
Other Republicans have similarly decried the considerable revision, including former President Donald Trump.
“MASSIVE SCANDAL! The Harris-Biden Administration has been caught fraudulently manipulating Job Statistics to hide the true extent of the Economic Ruin they have inflicted upon America,” Trump alleged in a Truth Social post.
“New Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the Administration PADDED THE NUMBERS with an extra 818,000 Jobs that DO NOT EXIST, AND NEVER DID.”
Su has remained in an active position since March of last year due to her nomination stalling out in the Senate amid resistance from Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) and Republicans.
Some observers have fretted that the grim job revision could indicate that the economy is performing much more anemically than previously thought.
