DOGE's reductions in government jobs are affecting employment revisions as BLS reports payroll figures late. As government jobs decline, revisions show sharper decreases. Economists note that the cuts slow processing at the BLS, exacerbating inaccuracies in employment data. July's employment figures revealed only 73,000 new jobs, with substantial downward revisions of 258,000 from May and June. These trends have prompted political backlash, including President Trump's firing of the BLS commissioner. Additionally, DOGE cuts contributed to GDP growth decline, with a 0.3 percentage point reduction cited due to decreased federal spending.
The DOGE's cuts to government jobs are contributing to downward employment revisions because the government typically reports its payrolls to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) late, and increasingly later reports often lead to bigger revisions. This didn't matter much when government employment was stable, but now that government jobs are declining, the cuts are being picked up in the revisions.
According to the BLS, July's employment report showed a modest addition of 73,000 jobs. More strikingly, job gains from May and June were sharply revised downward by a combined 258,000.
Pantheon Macroeconomics found that DOGE cuts knocked approximately 0.3 percentage points from U.S. GDP growth in Q2, primarily due to an 11.2% drop in federal non-defense spending.
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