Decisions without data

For Bloomberg, Jarrell Dillard and Michael Sasso report on the effects of the government shutdown on federal data.

BLS collects the prices of around 80,000 items over three 10-day periods each month; most are still gathered manually in person. The agency was able to release the September CPI report on Oct. 24, more than a week later than scheduled, after recalling staff to prepare it so that the Social Security Administration could tally its annual cost-of-living adjustment.

Economists generally weren’t concerned about the quality of the September inflation report because data collection was done before the government closed. But the fate of the October report, which normally would be released on Nov. 13, is up in the air. BLS hasn’t been able to collect new price information since the shutdown began, and a White House-affiliated X account said on Oct. 24 that “there will likely NOT be an inflation release next month for the first time in history.”

It does not seem like a great idea to cut off the data supply during these uncertain times, but maybe that’s what some people want.