Congressional committee leaders from North Carolina and Virginia have given a new Friday deadline in pursuit of answers from the embattled leader of the U.S. Department of Labor.
New information through a public records request has added intrigue and more questions in the wake of a botched report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Over the last seven months, Julie Su – record-setting unconfirmed appointment to lead the Labor Department – has overseen botched job numbers off by nearly 1 million, unfulfilled response to a congressional committee on that gaffe, overseen a premature data unload tied to the consumer price index, and overseen confidential information shared to Wall Street.
When the job numbers were released Aug. 21, a Freedom of Information Act request details “how BLS employees did not know of a technical problem with the release until they were inundated with calls and other communications about the problem.” And, “Further, when it was clear there was a problem, BLS employees were apparently unaware of how to respond to public inquiries concerning the data and desperately sought guidance.”
So reads the letter sent by U.S. Reps. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and Bob Good, R-Va., to Su on Friday.
Foxx is chairwoman of the Committee on Education and Workforce Development in the U.S. House of Representatives; Good is chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions.
Their respective panels wish to see all information given to Bloomberg for its FOIA discovery, and the written complaints to the Labor Department about the job numbers.
Su is backed by a White House taking advantage of the departmental rule whereby a deputy serving in an acting capacity of leadership can do so indefinitely. Other administration nominees are subject to a time limit. Su was nominated by President Joe Biden on Feb. 28, 2023; Tuesday marked 610 days of the administration’s end-around.
On Aug. 26, Foxx and Good said the Biden administration had exaggerated job growth with an overestimation of 818,000 in the Aug. 21 report. In March, published reports said an economist with the Bureau of Labor Statistics had shared information not available to the public with Wall Street firms.
And on May 15, Foxx’s committee says the Bureau of Labor Statistics “accidentally loaded data files to its website 30 minutes prior to the scheduled release time of the consumer price index.”
“This historic revision made it clear that Bidenomics and the administration’s other radical policies are hurting American workers and businesses,” a release from Foxx’s committee says.
In their letter, Foxx and Good write, “The Department of Labor has once again ignored an oversight request from the Committee on Education and the Workforce as part of its work to hold the federal government to the highest standards of accountability. On September 25, 2024, the Committee sent you an oversight letter requesting information regarding the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ release of the 2024 Current Employment Statistics Preliminary Benchmark Revision (‘Job Numbers’). The Committee requested a response by October 9, but DOL has not provided a response to the letter. Since the initial request additional disturbing reports have surfaced in the press and the Committee is reupping its oversight inquiry on this matter.”
