‘Trump Is a Master at Creating Uncertainty’: 3 Experts Try to Make Sense of the Economy

Josh Barro, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with N. Gregory Mankiw, a professor of economics at Harvard and a former chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush, and Betsey Stevenson, an economics professor at the University of Michigan and a former chief economist of Barack Obama’s Department of Labor and a member of his Council of Economic Advisers, to discuss the perilous status of economic data and the uncertain state of the economy.

Josh Barro: Earlier this month President Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after a monthly jobs report that showed significant softening of the labor market. His nominee for a replacement, the Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni, has been criticized as unqualified even by conservative economists and is widely viewed as fulfilling a desire expressed by Steve Bannon and others to bring the statistical agencies into stronger political alignment with the president.

How should Americans read the jobs reports that come out over the next few months? How can we assess whether the numbers are coming under political influence?

N. Gregory Mankiw: My sense is that it would be difficult for Antoni to politically bias the numbers all by himself. The question is whether he leads a shake-up of the agency by firing a number of the professional and nonpartisan staff. If so, over time the numbers could become more suspect.

Betsey Stevenson: I agree with Greg that it would be almost impossible for him to taint the numbers in some nefarious way. There are too many diligent statisticians who would be whistle-blowers. One of the problems the B.L.S. already has is that it has lost staff under President Trump, who also dismissed all of the volunteer professional economists and statisticians who contributed to data accuracy through the advisory committees. Losing staff would make things worse in that dimension.

Mankiw: I agree that there would be whistle-blowers. But I wonder whether the general public would pay enough attention to care. The Trump administration has shown a willingness to do the previously unthinkable.