Economists are expressing relief that the White House withdrew its nomination for head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the government agency that reports key economic data.In August, Donald Trump nominated EJ Antoni, chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation and a co-author of Project 2025, to replace Erika McEntarfer, whom Trump fired after the bureau released revisions to its monthly jobs report that showed weak job growth over the summer.Antoni’s nomination ignited a rare consensus among both liberal and conservative economists, who said that Antoni was too partisan to serve in the role. Before his nomination, Antoni was an outspoken critic of the bureau and implied, with no evidence, that its data reporting was biased.Stan Veuger, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, called the withdrawal of Antoni’s nomination “good news in and of itself”.“Antoni was genuinely unqualified and had clearly been picked based on his willingness to produce highly partisan content,” Veuger said. “That said, it remains to be seen what comes next.”The White House has not detailed why it withdrew Antoni’s nomination.