Employment figures released in early September 2025 dramatically revised downward previously reported job gains under the Biden administration, fueling Republican accusations that the Federal Reserve’s rate strategy had been distorted by inflated data.
In mid-September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) disclosed a downward revision of 911,000 jobs for the 12 months ending March 2025—marking the largest negative adjustment in agency history. That exceeded the 818,000-job reduction announced in August 2024 under Biden, previously the largest post-crisis revision.The Gateway Pundit
That revelation provided ammunition for President Trump, who has argued all year that the Fed delayed lowering rates based on misleadingly strong job growth numbers—numbers now shown to be overstated.
In a September 2025 White House event, pro-Trump economist Steve Moore presented new Census Bureau data suggesting the Biden administration overestimated job creation by roughly 1.5 million over its final two years.Fox Business
Trump, who fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer shortly after a disappointing July jobs report, claimed the agency’s errors were deliberate, intended to boost Democratic prospects. He asserted that the BLS reported “phony” job beats before the election and then revised them downward after his victory.
The latest downward revision validates Trump’s criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, suggesting that rate cuts should have occurred sooner. In 2024, several cuts—including a 50-basis-point move in September, followed by smaller reductions—were seen by Trump supporters as politically timed to bolster election-year optics.
White House officials echoed that narrative, stating the record-setting downward adjustment “proves that President Trump was right: Biden’s economy was a disaster and the BLS is broken.” Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer added that Powell “should be embarrassed” and “needs to do his job and cut those interest rates now.
Observers note that while BLS benchmarking revisions are routine, the magnitude and timing of these cuts—particularly coming just before elections—raise questions. The 911,000-job reduction surpasses even Obama-era revisions and amounts to a 30% downward revision in job estimates from March 2023 to March 2024.
Since Trump began his second term, corrected BLS data has become a central talking point. Trump’s firing of McEntarfer came after a July 2025 report that showed just 73,000 jobs added and included a cumulative downward adjustment of 258,000 jobs for May and June. Trump characterized it as part of a long-standing trend of overstatement under Biden.
Steve Moore emphasized that errors of this magnitude—the 1.5 million job overcount—are nearly unprecedented and raise questions about the reliability of headline labor numbers. He contended that his support for replacing the BLS leadership was therefore justified.Fox Business
Trump has repeatedly framed these developments as vindication of his prior stance: that the Fed’s rate policy was inappropriate, and that the Fed had effectively been misled by inflated data. The Fed’s decision to hold rates higher longer was anchored in data that now appears to have been inflated—bolstering Trump’s assertion that cuts should have come sooner.The Gateway Pundit
Critics warn that politicizing the BLS undermines confidence in objective labor statistics. However, within conservative commentary circles, these revisions are interpreted as proof of systemic bias or incompetence—or worse—during the Biden years.
The unfolding narrative—of job number corrections, BLS leadership shakeups, and mounting Fed criticism—continues to energize Republican arguments that economic policy was compromised by faulty data.
Ten High-Value Keywords:
-
Biden job revision
-
BLS correction
-
Trump Fed fight
-
911,000 job cut
-
1.5 million overestimated jobs
-
McEntarfer fired
-
Fed interest rates
-
Labor statistics controversy
-
Census Bureau data
-
Overstated employment claims