Labor economist Aaron Sojourner said President Donald Trump’s decision to fire the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner shakes public trust in government data. He said BLS staff members have

Trump has focused on the revisions to the May and June data, which on Friday were revised lower, with job gains in May reduced to 19,000 from 144,000, and for June to just 14,000 from 147,000. Every month’s jobs data is revised in the following two months.

Trump has a go-to playbook if the numbers reveal uncomfortable realities, and that’s to discredit or conceal the figures and to attack the messenger — all of which can hurt the president’s efforts to convince the world that America is getting stronger.