Trump nominates BLS economist Brett Matsumoto to lead Bureau of Labor Statistics

President Donald Trump said on Truth Social Friday that he intends to nominate Brett Matsumoto, a career economist, to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Matsumoto is described as a longtime agency economist with expertise in data measurement. His LinkedIn shows undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Delaware and a doctorate in economics from the University of North Carolina in 2015.

He has worked at the BLS as a supervisory research economist, published papers on consumer expenditure and inflation measurement, and spent the past year on assignment at the Council of Economic Advisers. He is not very active on social media; a Facebook account listed under his name previously showed a photo with Ivanka Trump and now shows a photo with a tabby cat.

The BLS commissioner post has been vacant since August, when Trump fired Erika McEntarfer after a jobs report showed weak employment growth. Trump alleged, without providing evidence, that the data had been politically manipulated, a claim and removal that the article says have undermined public trust in the agency.

The BLS has roughly 2,000 employees; the commissioner is its only appointed position, serves a four-year term and requires Senate confirmation. The White House previously nominated EJ Antoni, a Heritage Foundation economist, for the job but later withdrew that nomination after it became clear he lacked sufficient Senate support.

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