Written by Sarah James
Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was fired by President Donald Trump on August 1, 2025, following a negative unemployment report that has been criticized for potentially undermining the agency’s credibility. However, his administration has previously taken actions that may compromise the accuracy of certain government data.
Take the tracking of maternal mortality in the United States, which is the highest among wealthy countries. To better understand when, when, and why maternal deaths occur, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been using the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System since 1987.
The Trump administration placed the agency in charge of gathering and monitoring this data on leave in April 2025.
There are currently no signs that any BLS data has been altered or erased. However, rumors of such happening in various other agencies have surfaced.
In addition, the White House is limiting access to government-curated data of all kinds and gathering fewer data on everything from the number of pupils enrolled in public schools to the number of Americans with health insurance. Additionally, President Donald Trump is attempting to eliminate entire departments, such as the Department of Education, that are in charge of gathering crucial statistics related to inequality and poverty.
Additionally, his administration has started to remove websites and repositories that make public government data available.
Why data is essential for the safety net
I research how and when government officials choose to gather data and how that data is used in political decision-making.After years of investigation, I’ve discovered that reliable data is crucial for journalists, advocates, voters, and politicians alike. Without it, identifying when a policy is failing is considerably more difficult, and helping those who lack political connections is even more challenging.
I have been monitoring the disruption, removal, and defunding of data on safety net programs, including food assistance and services for persons with disabilities, since Trump was inaugurated in for a second time.
I think it will be more difficult to determine who is eligible for these programs or what happens to people who lose their benefits if data collecting is disrupted. It will also be more difficult for proponents of safety net programs to rebuild them in the future, in my opinion, because of all this missing data.
Why the government collects this data
Without reliable data gathered over an extended period of time, it is impossible to determine if policies and initiatives are effective.
For instance, it’s difficult to determine how much the nation should spend on the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program (formerly known as food stamps), the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and related programs without a way to precisely count the number of people who need assistance putting food on their tables. Another example is provided by data on Medicaid enrollment and eligibility prior to and following the enactment of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Millions of Americans obtained health insurance coverage following the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, according to national data.
Data on how safety net programs affect low-income Americans is gathered by a wide range of institutions and organizations, including colleges, news outlets, think tanks, and nonprofits that concentrate on specific topics like poverty, inequality, or housing.
There is no doubt that these nongovernmental data collection initiatives will persist, if not expand. It’s quite improbable, though, that these stand-alone initiatives will be able to completely replace the government’s data collection initiatives.
The government is well positioned to gather and preserve sensitive data gathered over extended periods of time since it leads the implementation of official policy. Because of this, the removal of thousands of government websites may have far-reaching effects.
What makes Trump s approach stand out
The Trump administration is significantly different from his predecessors in that it has paused, defunded, and suppressed official data.
Social scientists and municipal officials in the United States recognized as early as the 1930s that statistics might be used to identify which programs were effective and which were ineffective. Since then, utilizing data to improve government operations has piqued the interest of officials from all political stripes.
Beginning in 2001, when President George W. Bush declared holding the government accountable to quantifiable results a primary priority, this emphasis on data intensified.
He believed that statistics was an effective instrument for evaluating the results of policies and cutting waste. The No Child Left Behind Act, his centerpiece education reform, significantly increased the amount of data on student accomplishment that was gathered and reported in public K–12 schools.
How this contrasts with the Obama and Biden administrations
PresidentsBoth Joe Biden and Barack Obama stressed the need of data in assessing how their policies affect low-income individuals, who have traditionally had less political influence.
Obama established a working committee to find methods for gathering, evaluating, and incorporating more relevant data into safety net policy.Biden adopted a number of the group’s recommendations.
For instance, when evaluating the effects of new safety net laws, he insisted on gathering and analyzing demographic data. This strategy influenced how his government implemented outreach initiatives to enroll individuals in Medicaid and Medicare, expanded broadband access, and changed home lending policies.
Why rebuilding will be hard
Without pertinent data, it is more difficult to argue for safety net programs. Programs that assist low-income individuals in finding housing, fresh food, and medical care, for instance, may be more economical than letting them stay in poverty.
Restoring government financing once a program is discontinued or cut off may become even more difficult if data gathering is blocked. This is because it will be harder for those who have already benefited from these programs to convince their fellow taxpayers that funding an expanding program or starting a new one is necessary.
Even well-meaning actions in the future, long after the Trump administration is over, could exacerbate the issues they were supposed to address if there is insufficient data.
Sarah James teaches political science at Gonzaga University as an assistant professor.
