A U.S. Senate committee has announced it will hold a vote next week on the nomination of Brett Matsumoto, President Donald Trump’s chosen candidate to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the federal agency responsible for producing critical economic data, including monthly jobs reports and inflation figures.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has scheduled that vote for June 24, according to a posting on the committee’s website.
Matsumoto faced the panel at a confirmation hearing last week, where he pushed back against claims that BLS data had been falsified or manipulated. His remarks stood in contrast to Trump’s past accusations that the former BLS commissioner had released fraudulent employment numbers.
An economist by training, Matsumoto has been employed at the BLS since 2015, though he is currently on leave to serve at the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers. During his hearing, he expressed confidence in the career staff members who gather and process the agency’s data, and pledged that their work would be what ultimately gets published.
Matsumoto also acknowledged that the BLS has faced technical problems in recent years that have affected data quality, and said he would work to resolve those issues. However, he stopped short of repeating Trump’s unsupported claims that the agency’s output had been politically manipulated.
Trump dismissed the agency’s previous commissioner, Erika McEntarfer — who had been appointed by former President Joe Biden — last August. Her firing came after the release of a monthly jobs report that contained unusually large revisions to earlier job creation figures.
Trump had initially tapped conservative economist E.J. Antoni to run the agency, but that nomination was later pulled.
The Senate committee, which is controlled by Republicans — as is the full Senate — would need to approve Matsumoto’s nomination before it could advance to a chamber-wide vote.
