The U.S. federal government has now been in “shutdown mode” for 15 days, and news reports indicate that this may continue for many more days. During this 2025 shutdown, several federal agencies responsible for producing key economic statistics—including the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)—have suspended their data collection and processing activities. As a result, the release of major economic indicators has been halted. These include the employment situation, unemployment rate, and, more recently, the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
The BLS has a schedule of data releases, and the shutdown has already impacted the release of a host of data. Here at the Private Enterprise Research Center, we routinely use data on employment levels and unemployment rates for the U.S. as a whole, for Texas, and for various metropolitan areas and counties within Texas. September data on employment levels and unemployment rates were scheduled for release as follows: USA numbers on October 3, state numbers including Texas on October 21, and county plus metro area numbers on October 29. Also scheduled for this month are September’s Consumer Price Index data, due for release on October 15.
As of today, the BLS has missed releasing data on national employment levels and the national unemployment rate, as well as the Consumer Price Index
The inconvenience to PERC is nowhere near as important an issue as is the impact on other institutions. The Federal Reserve System’s Federal Open Market Committee is meeting on October 29 and uses data on the economic situation in the nation when making decisions on monetary policy. The Fed has two main goals, price stability (interpreted as 2% inflation) and maximum employment (which we interpret as an unemployment rate of 4.2%). The Fed always has to make policy decisions based on the available current and past data. As the most current and timely data is unavailable due to the shutdown, the Fed’s policy-making job becomes even more difficult than usual. There are current concerns about a slowing of the economy, the possibility of rising unemployment rates and of a recession. There are also concerns about ongoing and possibly rising inflation rates, rates that continue to exceed the Fed’s officially stated target. Meanwhile the government shutdown has deprived the Fed of the most up-to-date data on the unemployment rate and on the price level.
This last point has dawned on the powers that be, and on October 9 the government announced that it would recall some furloughed workers from Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to prepare the CPI data for release, albeit on the delayed date of October 24. Apparently work on the CPI is now considered vital, a step in the right direction. The September CPI is also vital for programs that depend on inflation indexing, most notably the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA), which is calculated using the average CPI inflation rate for the months of July, August and September. Without the September figure, the Social Security Administration cannot determine or announce the next year’s COLA, delaying benefit increases for many beneficiaries.
The government shutdown further complicates the data collection and processing activities of major agencies. For example, in order to provide data on employment levels, the BLS surveys businesses regarding their employment levels. Early in a month, surveys are sent out to establishments to report on the pay period that includes the 12th of that month, and these survey responses are processed by the BLS around the third and fourth week of the month for release on schedule in the following month. For instance, the data behind the scheduled release of September employment levels for the nation resulted from surveys distributed in early September that covered the pay period Friday September 12. The data was analyzed subsequently, and scheduled for release on October 3, usually on the first Friday of every month.
Presumably the national employment level data was largely processed when the shutdown began, and could be released shortly after the end of the current shutdown. But what about the October data? The surveys should have gone out in early October, and by 13 of October, the employment data would have started coming in for BLS analysts to process the incoming data for nonresponse adjustments, seasonal adjustments and conduct validation procedures for the scheduled release on November 7. However, because of government shutdown and Department of Labor’s contingency plans, the BLS suspended all collection, processing and dissemination of surveys, meaning that the longer the government shutdown, the more difficult will be the catch-up for releasing November data. Overall, when funding lapses, these systems stall—data become incomplete, releases are delayed, and there is the potential for impairing policy decisions by the Federal Reserve, by Congress and the Treasury, as well as impairment of private analysts who count on government data to assess employment, inflation, income, and output trends.
Government economic statistics, especially statistics directly relevant for ongoing economic policy, should be considered vital, and workers creating this data not subject to furlough during the ongoing political theater we call a government shutdown.