Like President Donald Trump, Americans are skeptical of economic data from the federal government, according to a new poll.
The latest Economist/YouGov poll found that more Americans completely or somewhat distrust federal data on the economy than trust it. That’s an 8-percentage-point decrease in trust since March, when the question was last asked.
The poll results come just after Trump fired federal Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Dr. Erika McEntarfer last week on the heels of a weak jobs report.
Among U.S adults, 6% said they completely trust government economic data, 36% said they somewhat trust government data, 12% said they were unsure, 29% somewhat distrust the data and 17% completely distrust the data, according to the poll.
Many Americans think unemployment is higher than government figures indicate (44%), while 21% think the numbers are accurate, 28% say they don’t know and 8% say unemployment is lower than government figures suggest.
Most Democrats (54%) say unemployment is higher than government figures indicate, 46% of independents agree, and so do 32% of Republicans.
“This marks a reversal from when the question was asked during Joe Biden’s presidency – more Republicans than Democrats said then that the government was undercounting unemployment,” according to YouGov. “However, in the final three years of Trump’s first term, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to think unemployment numbers were being undercounted.”
When Trump fired McEntarfer, he said the job numbers were “rigged” but did not provide evidence. The White House highlighted some of the largest jobs data revisions during McEntarfer’s tenure leading the agency.
“A lengthy history of inaccuracies and incompetence by Erika McEntarfer, the former Biden-appointed Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has completely eroded public trust in the government agency charged with disseminating key data used by policymakers and businesses to make consequential decisions,” the White House said.
The White House noted that in 2024, BLS revised benchmark payroll growth for the year ending in March 2024 by 818,000 jobs, the second-largest benchmark revision on record.
Trump said Friday’s numbers were altered to make him look bad.
“In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad – Just like when they had three great days around the 2024 Presidential Election, and then, those numbers were ‘taken away’ on November 15, 2024, right after the Election, when the Jobs Numbers were massively revised DOWNWARD, making a correction of over 818,000 Jobs — A TOTAL SCAM.”
Trump is working to find a new Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner, a government job that pays $195,000 a year.
