CNBC host Jim Cramer admitted Thursday the federal government may not be able to collect accurate economic data and the private sector should take over.
President Donald Trump fired Commissioner of Labor Statistics Erika McEntarfer after the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported only 73,000 jobs were created in July, while figures from May and June were revised sharply downward. Cramer expressed the belief that government officials could not explain how they reached the figures they reported. (RELATED: ‘Something Wrong Here’: Scott Bessent Says BLS Took ‘Lazy Way’ Of Collecting ‘Corrupted’ Data)
“I think that we’re discovering the flaws in the system where many people are laid off and the different divisions are not as accurate or as good as they used to be,” Cramer said. “I think that if we were to bring someone on here in pure candor and say, how did you get that freight number? How did you get that warehouse number? I think they would say, I’m not really sure.”
WATCH:
The BLS on Thursday reported that the Producer Price Index rose by 3.3% year-over-year in July, the highest jump since February. Trump announced he would nominate Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni to serve as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Monday.
“When did you change your mind about the veracity of the data?” co-host Carl Quintanilla asked Cramer, who responded, “I think that the whole DOGE and then the firing, I think the firing was handled very poorly by the president because he was worried about looking bad in the numbers. I was worried about the numbers not being accurate. I thought that was a reason to be able to have maybe a change at the top.”
“I have been saying now for two years that this can no longer be handled by the by the public sector,” Cramer added. “We have the ability to model, we have algorithms, we have people that could tell us exactly what the real numbers are, and we just have to hire them. If I brought in, yes, the stock that actually reversed yesterday in criminal faction, just kidding. Palantir, I think, Palantir, with its ontology, its ability to be able to figure out an organization, would have much better numbers.”
The Biden administration admitted in August 2024 that the BLS overestimated job creation by over 800,000 jobs.
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