Trump BLS nominee Brett Matsumoto advances in Senate committee vote

Brett Matsumoto moved one step closer to running the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted 12-11 on July 15 to advance his nomination. The vote split strictly along party lines and sent the Maryland nominee to the full Senate. The committee had reset the vote after a June 26 notice, and its July 15 agenda also included nominees for the National Labor Relations Board and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics supplies the labor-market and inflation figures used by the Federal Reserve, traders, employers and households. The bureau is the federal government’s principal fact-finding body for labor economics and statistics, and its commissioner is the only non-career employee in an operation that produces nearly 200 national news releases and more than 700 state and local releases each year.

Matsumoto has worked at the bureau since 2015 as a research economist in the Division of Price and Index Number Research, where he has focused on inflation calculations. During his June 10 hearing before the committee, he said he did not believe bureau data were fabricated and pledged to protect the agency’s independence while it works through technical issues and declining survey response rates.

The confirmation fight comes after Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on August 1, 2025, following a weak jobs report and large downward revisions to prior payroll numbers. McEntarfer had been confirmed in January 2024 and was in the second year of a four-year term when removed. Federal law appoints the BLS commissioner by the president with Senate advice and consent and sets a four-year term unless the commissioner is removed sooner.