Erika McEntarfer, the ousted head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, warned Tuesday that President Donald Trump made a "dangerous step" by publicly firing her after revisions to the May and June jobs reports. Speaking at her alma mater, Bard College, McEntarfer said the dismissal was an attack on the independence of an institution she compared in importance to the Federal Reserve.

McEntarfer, who was appointed BLS commissioner by President Joe Biden in 2023 after serving on the White House Council of Economic Advisers, defended the accuracy of the agency's work through the day she was removed. She said the revisions — which combined showed a loss of about 258,000 payroll positions before being adjusted to 19,000 for May and 14,000 for June — reflected late responses to the bureau's payroll survey from businesses experiencing slower hiring.

"Firing your chief statistician is a dangerous step," McEntarfer told students, according to a CNN report. "That's an attack on the independence of an institution arguable as important as the Federal Reserve for economic stability." She warned that weakening public confidence in official statistics has led to worsening economic crises, higher inflation and greater borrowing costs in countries where statisticians were removed, citing Argentina, Greece and Turkey.

McEntarfer recounted a day she described as ordinary, when she met with White House officials to explain why downward revisions were necessary because late-reporting firms had fewer hires than initially indicated. She said the officials did not ask questions and that she later learned of her termination when a reporter alerted her to a Truth Social post from Trump accusing her, without providing evidence, of "faking" job numbers to benefit Democrats.

In his post, Trump said he had "directed my team to fire this Biden political appointee, IMMEDIATELY," and called for a replacement "much more competent and qualified." McEntarfer said she had "vouched for the accuracy and independence of the work at the agency up until the moment I was fired."

Since her ouster, the bureau has been led by Acting Commissioner William Wiatrowski, whom McEntarfer praised as "one of the finest public servants I have ever worked with." Trump has nominated E.J. Antoni, a chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to replace McEntarfer. Antoni has no prior government experience, and critics cited in coverage have questioned the accuracy and rigor of some of his work.

Among those critics, economists Stan Veuger of the American Enterprise Institute and Jessica Riedl of the Manhattan Institute have described errors in Antoni's published work and said those mistakes appeared to bias his findings. Antoni has said he would consider suspending the BLS's monthly jobs reports in favor of publishing more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data, remarks he made in an interview with Fox Business.

McEntarfer described her brief tenure at the BLS as a shift from "big-picture reformer" to a defensive posture, as she navigated budget constraints, staffing shortages and lower response rates to the bureau's large surveys. She said her goals on taking the job included modernizing data collection techniques, which the agency still conducts in part through phone surveys and in-person price checks on store shelves.

She said that, even as the bureau faced strains, she worked to ensure the integrity of statistics. "I can vouch for the accuracy and independence of the work at the agency up until the moment I was fired," she told the students. McEntarfer said that the downward revisions were the result of companies responding late to the bureau's payroll survey because they were "too busy trying to stay alive," a pattern she described as consistent with slowing economic activity.

Analysts and former officials have underscored the broader stakes of the dispute. Independent, timely economic data are critical for policymakers, markets and businesses. McEntarfer and others have warned that politicizing the production of statistics can undermine confidence in official numbers, with potential consequences for interest rates, investment and fiscal planning.

McEntarfer previously worked extensively at the Census Bureau on improving statistical quality before being tapped for the BLS post. She said she had hoped to help the BLS modernize its operations but found herself confronting what she called interference from the Department of Government Efficiency and other challenges that made operating the agency a "constant high-wire act."

Her public comments Tuesday were her first since the dismissal. Trump has said he believed numbers released by the bureau before revisions were "phony" and accused McEntarfer of adjusting figures after the election; he provided no evidence to support those assertions. The White House and Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment on McEntarfer's remarks.

The administration's choice to name a political appointee publicly and move quickly to replace a career agency head has prompted debate among economists, statisticians and former officials about the proper safeguards to protect the independence of agencies that compile the nation's economic statistics. The future of the BLS and the reception of any nominee will likely shape discussions about data integrity as the country approaches the 2024 election cycle.