About that July Bureau of Labor Statistics Jobs Data . . .
Has the foreign-born population really dropped by nearly two million since March? That’s what FRED says
By Andrew R. Arthur on August 6, 2025
President Trump has assailed the latest jobs data for July from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), going so far as to fire BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on August 1. He may want to review the analysis of that BLS data compiled by the research division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED), which suggests his immigration crackdown is working. According to FRED, the foreign-born population in the United States has fallen by 1.937 million since March, when the immigration-enforcement efforts of his “Border Czar”, Tom Homan, found their groove.
Homer and FRED
As the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank explains:
FRED is a descendent of the data publications created by Homer Jones, who was the research director of the St. Louis Fed from 1958 to 1971. Jones was a proponent of making economic data widely available, allowing policymakers and members of the public alike to judge for themselves the state of the economy and the outcome of policy.
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FRED got its start in 1991 as a free electronic bulletin board (a precursor to the Internet) and offered “free up-to-the-minute economic data via modems connected to personal computers,” providing data from the [weekly U.S. Financial Data, “USFD’].
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What began as a simple, printed data publication has grown into a sophisticated and successful vehicle for sharing important economic data with anyone around the world.
And how. As I can attest, even the least technologically competent among us can easily access FRED’s data, and as a bonus, its website follows your searches and suggests other helpful data.
https://cis.org/Arthur/About-July-Bureau-Labor-Statistics-Jobs-Data
