Ray Dalio backs Trump's firing of labour stats chief, but warns of political data manipulation
His comments come in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s reported firing of the BLS Commissioner after the release of weaker-than-expected jobs numbers. The figures were later revised significantly upward, raising questions over the accuracy of the initial estimates.
- Aug 4, 2025,
- Updated Aug 5, 2025 12:12 AM IST
In a pointed critique shared on X (formerly Twitter), American billionaire investor and hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio said he “probably would have fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics too,” citing what he called an outdated and flawed system for estimating employment data.
His comments come in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s reported firing of the BLS Commissioner after the release of weaker-than-expected jobs numbers. The figures were later revised significantly upward, raising questions over the accuracy of the initial estimates.
“The huge revisions in Friday’s employment numbers are symptomatic of this,” Dalio said, pointing out that the corrected data aligned more closely with private estimates, which he considered more reliable. “There is no good plan in the works for fixing it,” he added, warning that such failures risk undermining trust in official statistics.
While Dalio acknowledged that he would have likely taken the same action from a data quality standpoint, he issued a strong caveat regarding the motivation behind the move. “If the way most people in the media are conveying President Trump’s motivation for the firing is correct... that would be a big problem,” he said, referencing The New York Times report that linked the firing directly to Trump’s dissatisfaction with the weak numbers.
“Leaders manipulating numbers that distort the truth to suit their political objectives is a classic sign of the loss of a functioning system,” Dalio warned, stressing that transparency and reliable data are fundamental to a stable economy and democracy.
Calling for urgent reforms, Dalio concluded: “We do need big renovations to the ways the government estimates what’s going on in the economy to make them more, not less, accurate.”
On August 1, 2025, President Donald Trump dismissed Erika McEntarfer, the Senate-confirmed Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), following the release of a weak July jobs report, which showed approximately 73,000 jobs added, far below the 110,000 economists had predicted, and included significant downward revisions totaling about 258,000 jobs to May and June figures.
Trump denounced the agency’s data as “rigged” and “phony,” claiming — with no supporting evidence — that McEntarfer had inflated numbers prior to the 2024 election to benefit the Biden-Harris ticket and then readjusted them after he won, labeling the swings “the biggest miscalculations in over 50 years”.
In a pointed critique shared on X (formerly Twitter), American billionaire investor and hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio said he “probably would have fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics too,” citing what he called an outdated and flawed system for estimating employment data.
His comments come in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s reported firing of the BLS Commissioner after the release of weaker-than-expected jobs numbers. The figures were later revised significantly upward, raising questions over the accuracy of the initial estimates.
“The huge revisions in Friday’s employment numbers are symptomatic of this,” Dalio said, pointing out that the corrected data aligned more closely with private estimates, which he considered more reliable. “There is no good plan in the works for fixing it,” he added, warning that such failures risk undermining trust in official statistics.
While Dalio acknowledged that he would have likely taken the same action from a data quality standpoint, he issued a strong caveat regarding the motivation behind the move. “If the way most people in the media are conveying President Trump’s motivation for the firing is correct... that would be a big problem,” he said, referencing The New York Times report that linked the firing directly to Trump’s dissatisfaction with the weak numbers.
“Leaders manipulating numbers that distort the truth to suit their political objectives is a classic sign of the loss of a functioning system,” Dalio warned, stressing that transparency and reliable data are fundamental to a stable economy and democracy.
Calling for urgent reforms, Dalio concluded: “We do need big renovations to the ways the government estimates what’s going on in the economy to make them more, not less, accurate.”
On August 1, 2025, President Donald Trump dismissed Erika McEntarfer, the Senate-confirmed Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), following the release of a weak July jobs report, which showed approximately 73,000 jobs added, far below the 110,000 economists had predicted, and included significant downward revisions totaling about 258,000 jobs to May and June figures.
Trump denounced the agency’s data as “rigged” and “phony,” claiming — with no supporting evidence — that McEntarfer had inflated numbers prior to the 2024 election to benefit the Biden-Harris ticket and then readjusted them after he won, labeling the swings “the biggest miscalculations in over 50 years”.