The economic data blackout could become a data dark age as the lockdown continues

Economic reports that government statistical agencies never received led economists to wonder what would happen if the data never arrived.

Experts assume that government statistical agencies will try to play catch-up once the government reopens and publish delayed reports for October, as they did in previous shutdowns. But with the current shutdown looking like it could be the longest in history, economists are starting to think about what would happen if agencies abandoned the October report entirely and it became a blank dot on future historical charts.

“As the lockdown continues with no end in sight, risks are rising for the October report,” Sarah House and Nicole Cervi, economists at Wells Fargo Securities, wrote in a commentary. “At a minimum, collection rates are expected to be lower as data collection remains suspended, and the risk is rising that the publication of the October CPI report could be skipped entirely.”

The problem is that the data, including data on inflation and job creation, is based on large-scale surveys. With the closure of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, these surveys were not conducted. (With the important exception of the September CPI report, which is scheduled to be published on October 24.)

“If the shutdown continues, it is likely that for the first time in at least six decades, there will be a full-month gap in data on jobs and unemployment in the U.S. economy,” Elise Gould, chief economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute, a think tank, and Joe Fast, a research assistant, wrote in a commentary.

The data drought is occurring at a time when economists and policymakers are more information-hungry than usual. President Donald Trump’s policies of imposing tariffs, cracking down on immigration, and mass layoffs of federal employees have sent shockwaves through the economy that experts are still trying to measure.

Recent reports have shown that the labor market is slowing at the same time that tariffs are driving inflation higher, raising red flags about the economy entering a period of slow growth and high inflation, or “stagflation.”

“These data delays can lead economic actors (such as the Federal Reserve, Congress, investors, and employers) to fall behind the curve of economic events and thus make suboptimal decisions,” Gould and Fast wrote.

Thursday was supposed to be a big day for economic data. The Bureau of Economic Analysis was scheduled to publish its personal consumption expenditures report for September. Checking the monthly status of consumer income, spending and inflation is data the Federal Reserve uses as a measure of whether inflation is running at its target of a 2% annual rate.

The Census Bureau was supposed to publish its monthly report on retail sales for September, a key indicator of how willing and able American households are to keep the economy moving along with their spending. The Labor Department was scheduled to publish its weekly unemployment claims report, a critical and timely indicator of the health of the labor market.

Instead, all of these reports have been postponed indefinitely as a result of the ongoing government shutdown, which began on October 1 and has no end in sight. The data blackout has left economists and Fed officials judging the state of the economy by measures they previously considered secondary, such as the ADP’s jobs report and the Fed’s anecdotal “beige book.”

Fed Governor Christopher Waller noted that the lack of official data complicates the Fed’s task as it tries to set its key interest rate.

“Although alternatives to private sector data are available and are a useful complement to official statistics, they are less useful when they stand alone,” Waller said in prepared remarks at an event in New York on Thursday. “The delay in the September employment report in particular makes it difficult to know whether the labor market is continuing to decline or stabilize.”