The shutdown-imposed data gap could be permanent.

4 hours ago7 min read3 comments

The government shutdown has officially ended, but the data disruption it sowed will linger with potentially permanent consequences for economic policymaking. This record-long data blackout will soon give way to a cascade of delayed reports, yet a critical gap in our understanding of the economy's performance in October may never be filled, fundamentally impairing the interpretation of November's data and creating a persistent blind spot in the nation's economic record.The White House stated Wednesday that the Bureau of Labor Statistics might not release any of last month's crucial data, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt warning that the Democrats may have 'permanently damaged the Federal statistical system' by leaving October's Consumer Price Index and jobs reports in limbo, a situation she described as leaving 'our policymakers at the Fed flying blind at a critical period. ' While the BLS has yet to confirm this dire assessment, the reality is that the economic agency, along with the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau, is scrambling to publish a revised schedule for economic releases.The immediate fallout is a fragmentation of data integrity; while September jobs data might surface relatively quickly as it was near completion before the shutdown, the October report faces an existential crisis. The core issue, as explained by Guy Berger, a senior fellow at the Burning Glass Institute, is a catastrophic loss of contextualization.November's economic data will arrive without the preceding month's figures for comparison, a problem that will only be partially ameliorated when December data arrives, creating a volatile and uncertain environment for the Federal Reserve's interest rate decisions. The situation is most acute for the Consumer Price Index, where Goldman Sachs economists have warned that the shutdown appears 'most problematic for the quality of CPI,' as price data collection—much of which is conducted in person—cannot be retroactively performed.This forces the agency to consider 'imputing,' or estimating, price changes for entire categories, a practice that risks the data falling short of the agency's rigorous standards and could lead officials to skip the release altogether. The bifurcation of the jobs report is another critical vulnerability; the BLS may release the payroll data from its survey of businesses, as responses are often late and used for revisions, but the household survey, which produces the indispensable unemployment rate, was not conducted in October and cannot be recreated.As White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett conceded on Fox News, 'We'll get the jobs part, but we won't get the unemployment rate. We probably.will never actually know for sure what the unemployment rate was in October. ' This creates a dangerous precedent, echoing historical data disruptions during government shutdowns but on a more profound scale, potentially undermining the global credibility of U.S. economic data and influencing international market reactions. The long-term risk, as articulated by the Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a group led by former agency leaders, is that 'October 2025 will permanently remain a partial blind spot in America's official record,' a scenario that complicates economic forecasting, corporate investment planning, and the public's understanding of economic trends during a period of significant geopolitical and financial volatility.

#government shutdown

#economic data

#Bureau of Labor Statistics

#unemployment rate

#CPI

#featured

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