The White House has announced that inflation data for October will not be released next month due to the US government shutdown.
This could create the first gap in a data series that has been unbroken for more than 100 years.
The White House said the federal government has been shut down for 24 days due to a budget dispute between Republicans and Democrats. “Due to the inability to conduct on-the-ground research, it appears that inflation statistics will not be released next month for the first time in history.”
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that a limited number of employees were temporarily called in to release only September consumer price index (CPI) data, but all other data collection and publication activities were suspended for the duration of the government shutdown.
Nearly 700,000 federal workers have been furloughed, while a similar number of public sector workers remain unpaid. This could force many households to defer spending.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for September was released to allow the social security agency to calculate the increase in the cost of living until 2026. But experts warn that the current government shutdown could have an even broader impact than the longest government shutdown in 2018-2019.
“Now it seems almost inevitable. Normally, the BLS starts collecting data for October at the beginning of the month. It will be difficult to make up for it because of staffing shortages and system adjustments that need to be made,” said former BLS Commissioner Erica Groshen.
Stephen Englander, head of global G10 foreign exchange research at Standard Chartered, said publishing CPI reports with incomplete or estimated data would further degrade the quality of the data. “We may be missing a month’s worth of data and November will be partially affected, but it’s not a catastrophe. It’s just an inconvenience,” he said.
*This is not investment advice.
