The Trump administration plans to release an important inflation report later this month, despite having closed down the agency responsible for gathering essential economic data during the government shutdown.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that the September Consumer Price Index (CPI) report will now be available on Friday, October 24, which is more than a week later than its initial release date.
Since the government funding lapsed on October 1, the BLS hasn’t been able to produce or collect any economic data, leaving policymakers and investors reliant on private sector reports for economic assessments.
Like past administrations, President Trump’s team has sidelined almost all non-essential BLS staff due to the shutdown. Consequently, the BLS couldn’t publish its September employment report, which was due just two days after the shutdown began.
Despite the setbacks, the BLS has stated it’ll call back some employees to work on the September CPI report because of its critical role. This report informs the Social Security Administration on annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for federal benefits, and any delays could complicate that process.
This government shutdown adds to the challenges faced by the BLS, which has already been under fire from President Trump amid significant upheaval within the agency following the dismissal of its former director.
The president and his supporters have accused the BLS—a bipartisan agency made up of career federal employees—of distorting employment figures to misrepresent economic performance and mask job losses during former President Joe Biden’s tenure. Yet, Trump hasn’t offered any concrete proof for these assertions, instead attributing normal revisions in BLS data and a series of disappointing employment reports as evidence of a conspiracy against him. Notably, he removed former BLS Commissioner Erica McEnterfer in August, after particularly low employment statistics and important adjustments to prior growth figures during both his and Biden’s administration.
Economists and analysts from across the political spectrum have criticized Trump’s actions, arguing that manipulating the BLS report is nearly impossible due to the vast array of data points that must align.
