The Labor Department has announced an inquiry into the Bureau of Labor Statistics over recent changes to its data practices.

In a letter published Wednesday, the office of the inspector general for the Labor Department cited the BLS’ recent decision to reduce data collection activities for two key inflation reports, as well as the large downward revision in employment estimates it announced Tuesday. It said it is reviewing the ‘challenges’ the agency has faced ‘in collecting and reporting closely watched economic data.’

The probe comes one month after President Donald Trump fired the head of the BLS as part of a broader pressure campaign that critics say has risked politicizing a part of the government that has long played a crucial role in the business world. The BLS, which is tasked with collecting data on economic indicators such as jobs and inflation, had generally been left alone by previous administrations.

But Trump began zeroing in on the BLS as his frustrations with the Federal Reserve mounted, coinciding with economic numbers that started to warn about a broader U.S. slowdown.

Since then, the labor market has slowed considerably. Just before the head of the BLS was fired, the department released a weaker-than-expected jobs report, citing claims of data manipulation that critics say are unfounded.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, another frequent target of Trump’s, has said Fed policymakers are ‘getting the data that we need to do our jobs’ and stressed the importance of the federal statistical agencies.

‘The government data is really the gold standard in data,’ he added. ‘We need it to be good and to be able to rely on it.’

Trump then nominated E.J. Antoni, an economist with the far-right Heritage Foundation, as the new head of the BLS, a move many economists have criticized.

Trump and other BLS critics have focused on the department’s revisions to its reports, a practice that dates back decades and has been generally seen as a necessary part of the challenge of collecting near-term economic data. It has also faced other challenges in data collection, including budget challenges and low response rates to its collection efforts.

The BLS previously said the decision to reduce inflation data surveys was necessary given existing budget constraints. Meanwhile, mainstream economists say the latest downward revisions — while large — are part of a routine annual process known as benchmarking.

While response rates to the bureau’s surveys have been declining, researchers recently found that revisions and falling response rates did not reduce the reliability of the jobs and inflation reports.

Shares of Kenvue fell more than 10% on Friday after a report that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will likely link autism to the use of the company’s pain medication Tylenol in pregnant women.

HHS will release the report that could draw that link this month, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

That report will also suggest a medicine derived from folate — a water-soluble vitamin — can be used to treat symptoms of the developmental disorder in some people, according to the Journal.

In a statement, an HHS spokesperson said, “We are using gold-standard science to get to the bottom of America’s unprecedented rise in autism rates.”

“Until we release the final report, any claims about its contents are nothing more than speculation,” they added.

Tylenol could be the latest widely used and accepted treatment that Kennedy has undermined at the helm of HHS, which oversees federal health agencies that regulate drugs and other therapies. Kennedy has also taken steps to change vaccine policy in the U.S., and has amplified false claims about safe and effective shots that use mRNA technology.

Kennedy has made the disorder a key focus of HHS, pledging in April that the agency will “know what has caused the autism epidemic” by September and eliminate exposures. He also said that month that the agency has launched a “massive testing and research effort” involving hundreds of scientists worldwide that will determine the cause.

In a statement, Kenvue said it has “continuously evaluated the science and [continues] to believe there is no causal link” between the use of acetaminophen, the generic name for Tylenol, during pregnancy and autism.

The company added that the Food and Drug Administration and leading medical organizations “agree on the safety” of the drug, its use during pregnancy and the information provided on the Tylenol label.

The FDA website says the agency has not found “clear evidence” that appropriate use of acetaminophen during pregnancy causes “adverse pregnancy, birth, neurobehavioral, or developmental outcomes.” But the FDA said it advises pregnant women to speak with their health-care providers before using over-the-counter drugs.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists maintains that acetaminophen is safe during pregnancy when taken as directed and after consulting a health-care provider.

Some previous studies have suggested the drug poses risks to fetal development, and some parents have brought lawsuits claiming that they gave birth to children with autism after using it.

But a federal judge in Manhattan ruled in 2023 that some of those lawsuits lacked scientific evidence and later ended the litigation in 2024. Some research has also found no association between acetaminophen use and autism.

In a note on Friday, BNP Paribas analyst Navann Ty said the firm believes the “hurdle to proving causation [between the drug and autism] is high, particularly given that the litigation previously concluded in Kenvue’s favor.”

The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage dropped 16 basis points to 6.29% Friday, according to Mortgage News Daily, following the release of a weaker-than-expected August employment report.

It’s the lowest rate since Oct. 3 and the biggest one-day drop since August 2024. Rates are finally breaking out of the high 6% range, where they’ve been stuck for months.

“This was a pretty straightforward reaction to a hotly anticipated jobs report,” said Mortgage News Daily Chief Operating Officer Matt Graham. “It’s a good reminder that the market gets to decide what matters in terms of economic data, and the bond market has a clear voting record that suggests the jobs report is always the biggest potential source of volatility for rates.”

Graham said in a post on X that many lenders are “priced better” than Oct. 3 and would be quoting in the high 5% range.

The drop is a major change from May, when the rate on the 30-year fixed peaked at 7.08%. It’s big for buyers out shopping for a home today, especially given high home prices.

Take, for example, someone purchasing a $450,000 home, which is just above August’s national median price, using a 30-year fixed mortgage with a 20% down payment. Not including taxes or insurance, the monthly payment at 7% would be $2,395. At 6.29%, that payment would be $2,226, a difference of $169 per month.

That might not sound like a lot to some, but it can mean the difference in not just affording a home, but qualifying for a mortgage.

Homebuilder stocks reacted favorably Friday, with names like Lennar, DR Horton and Pulte all up roughly 3% midday. Homebuilding ETF ITB has been running hot for the last month as rates slowly moved lower. It’s up close to 13% in the past month.

The big question is whether the drop in rates will be enough to get homebuyers back in the market.

Mortgage demand from homebuyers, an early indicator, have yet to respond to gradually improving rates. Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home last week were 6.6% lower from four weeks before, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

“Homebuyers grapple with a lack of affordability, sellers contend with more competition, and builders deal with lower buyer demand,” Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com, said Friday in a statement after the release of the August employment report. “These conditions haven’t spelled catastrophe, but have created a cruel summer for the housing market.”

Some analysts have argued that buyers need to see mortgage rates in the 5% range before it really makes a difference. Home prices remain stubbornly high, and while the gains have definitely cooled, they are not yet coming down on a national level. In addition, uncertainty about the state of the economy and the job market has left many would-be buyers on the sidelines.

Shares in the Trump family’s latest cryptocurrency made its stock market debut Wednesday, triggering more ethical concerns as the Trumps look to cash in on crypto as the president’s administration weakens regulations for the nascent industry.

American Bitcoin, a firm co-founded this spring by Eric Trump, the president’s son, saw its share price climb as much as 39% by early afternoon to about $9.60.

It ended the day at $8.04, lower than its opening price of $9.22.

According to a release, the company is set up to accumulate bitcoin through computer “mining” of the cryptocurrency, as well as “opportunistic bitcoin purchases.” By owning a share of American Bitcoin, investors are betting that the company will be able to grow its bitcoin holdings faster than competitors. It also assumes bitcoin’s price will keep going up.

American Bitcoin’s stock debut is renewing ethics concerns about the Trump family’s ability to benefit from the president’s influence on the crypto industry, where it is increasingly seeing windfalls.

On Monday, the first public sales of a digital token minted by World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm co-founded by the Trump family, created as much as $5 billion in paper wealth for them and other insiders based on existing holdings. Last week, Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform, announced it had struck a deal with Crypto.com to accumulate Crypto.com’s native token Cronos, or CRO. Since the announcement, the value of CRO has climbed about 69%.

Shortly before 1 p.m, the value of Eric Trump’s American Bitcoin stake had climbed to as much as $600 million, according to calculations by Bloomberg News. Donald Trump Jr. also owns a stake, though its extent was not immediately clear. A representative for Trump Jr. did not respond to a request for comment.

“There’s no question there’s a conflict of interest here,” said Virginia Canter, chief counsel for ethics and anticorruption with the Democracy Defenders Action group, a bipartisan advocacy group that seeks to oppose authoritarianism. Canter served as a legal adviser in four different presidential administrations. Beyond having the ability to appoint regulators charged with overseeing the crypto industry, Trump can also create an uneven playing field for other crypto market participants who might believe they may pay a price for competing with his entities — or failing to engage with them, Canter said.

In a post on X last night, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said of the start of American Bitcoin’s stock trading: “it’s corruption, plain and simple.”

A representative for the Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment about the ethics concerns.

Estimates about how much President Trump and his family have earned from their crypto ventures vary. Reuters calculated that they made as much $500 million from the World Liberty decentralized finance platform, which debuted last year.

The figure is a moving target. In May, Zach Witkoff, a World Liberty co-founder and the son of White House Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, announced that an Abu Dhabi-based firm had purchased $2 billion-worth of World Liberty’s stablecoin as part of an investment in the Binance crypto exchange. In July, Trump Media announced it had accumulated roughly $2 billion in bitcoin and related assets, accounting for about two-thirds of Trump Media’s total liquid assets. The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, a financial instrument Trump created in advance of returning to the Oval Office, owns 52% of Trump Media.

The group that created Trump’s memecoin, $TRUMP, earned $350 million from initial sales, the Financial Times reported in March, though its ownership structure and Trump family members’ direct stakes are unclear.

The White House has maintained that the president is not involved in the day-to-day affairs of Trump family businesses. Some ethics experts have argued that presidents are exempt from conflict-of-interest laws because they oversee too many areas to make enforcement practical.

In a statement, the White House blasted any insinuation of a conflict of interest.

“The media’s continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and reinforce the public’s distrust in what they read,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “Neither the President nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.” She said the administration “is fulfilling the President’s promise to make the United States the crypto capital of the world by driving innovation and economic opportunity for all Americans.”

At a conference last week, Eric Trump said the bitcoin community had embraced his father “unlike anything I had ever seen before.” Since then, the crypto industry has become one of the most influential players in politics: Its super PAC, Fairshake, was the largest-single donor group during the 2024 election and has already accumulated $140 million in advance of next year’s midterms, Politico reported.

The Trump brothers have announced a flurry of business moves since their father took office that parallel the president’s policies and agenda. Last month, they announced they would serve as advisers to New America, a firm that aims to buy businesses that “play a meaningful role in revitalizing domestic manufacturing, expanding innovation ecosystems, and strengthening critical supply chains.”

The brothers are receiving a combined 5 million shares in the company, which seeks to raise $300 million from investors in advance of going public.