US President Donald Trump published on Thursday evening on his profile on the social network “Truth Social“ a graph with data on the labor market, which at that time had not yet been officially announced, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA. The graph published by Trump received nearly 14,000 likes from users of the platform.
The graph contains information according to which the US economy has created 654,000 jobs in the private sector since January, while employment in the public sector has decreased by 181,000 people. These data were officially released only on Friday morning (local time) by the US Department of Labor as part of the closely watched monthly employment report for December.
Bloomberg News previously reported on the case, calling it a possible violation of established practice for disclosing economic data.
The US president and members of his economic team usually receive the employment report a day before its official publication. According to established practice, administration officials are not allowed to comment on the data contained in it within 30 minutes of its public release, in order to allow the public and markets to familiarize themselves with the information, which is generally considered politically neutral.
Although Donald Trump's publication did not contain specific data on jobs in December, it could have signaled to investors that employment growth at the end of last year was weaker than previously expected.
Economists warn that such actions could undermine confidence in official US government statistics and increase concerns that data, which should generally be interpreted non-partisan, is being used for political purposes. This in turn carries the risk of confusion around macroeconomic indicators and increased volatility in financial markets.
“We want the most level playing field possible for all market participants, and these actions violate that“, Diane Swank, chief economist at KPMG, told “Bloomberg“. According to her, “anyone who follows the markets will now be checking the president's social media posts for possible indications of economic data from the night before“.