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President Donald Trump is set to nominate Brett Matsumoto, a longtime economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to lead the agency responsible for some of the US government’s most important economic data collection.
The pick has been announced internally at the BLS and the president is expected to announce his selection publicly as soon as Friday evening, said three people familiar with the matter.
The choice of Matsumoto, whose confirmation is subject to Senate approval, draws a line under a period of turmoil at the agency that began in August when Trump sacked then-commissioner Erika McEntarfer following a bleak jobs report he said was “rigged” against him.
Trump’s initial choice to replace her, EJ Antoni, was withdrawn after it became clear the chief economist at the rightwing Heritage Foundation would struggle to be confirmed by senators. Antoni was a prominent critic of the BLS, who economists feared lacked sufficient experience and would undermine the credibility of the agency’s data.
Matsumoto, who has spent almost a decade as a research economist at the BLS, appeared to be a less controversial choice.
“This is a good choice by President Trump that I suspect most economists . . . will support,” said Omair Sharif, an economist at Inflation Insights.
“He has a good deal of experience with the agency. He is a smart, skilled research economist who understands the nuances of the data, particularly with respect to inflation,” Sharif added.
The announcement was expected to come the same day the president unveiled former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh as his choice to lead the US central bank following months of speculation.
The BLS and Matsumoto did not respond to requests for comment. The Wall Street Journal first reported that Trump planned to nominate the BLS veteran for the role.
The agency employs roughly 2,000 people responsible for producing data reports that policymakers and global investors rely on to gauge the health of the world’s biggest economy.
This includes a monthly jobs report and the consumer price index, which are used for everything from setting US pension payouts to Fed policy.
Matsumoto will take the helm at a time of significant strain for the agency, which has struggled with waning survey response rates and a curtailment of resources that have undermined the strength of its reports.
He will rejoin the BLS after spending the past year on leave as a senior economist on the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Matsumoto holds a PhD in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Delaware. His research at the BLS focused on measuring consumer prices.