The Government Shutdown Is Helping Trump Obscure Federal Economic Data

The Bureau of Labor Statistics was forced to stop the publication of its monthly report still expected due to the government’s closure, making room for the administration of President Donald Trump to hide the real state of the economy nine months after his second term.

While the president has clearly indicated his intention to use the government’s closure as a means of targeting democrats and dismissing more workers from the federal government to “inflict massive pain”, the BLS situation creates a unique opportunity for an administration opposite to precise data. According to the emergency plan published by the Ministry of Labor, only one of the more than 2,000 BLS employees, the acting commissioner, will work during the closure.

Here is how the Labor Department described the BLS stop functions:

“BLS suspend all operations.”

“Economic data that should be published during the spear will not be published.”

“All active data collection activities for BLS surveys will stop.”

“The BLS website will not be updated with new content or restored in the event of a technique

Failure during a spear.

What if the stop continues?

“The versions of economic data will probably be delayed if a spear is extended.”

In addition, “a reduction in the quality of the data collected could have an impact on the quality of future estimates produced”.

Currently, all signs indicate an economy of weakening, one exacerbating the gap between the superior 10% and everyone, and have a particularly harmful effect on small and medium -sized enterprises, farmers and manufacturing industry, according to previous BLS data. These are the very sectors that Trump campaigned to help.

On Wednesday, the private HR ADP and Payroll Corporation published its own non -governmental employment numbers, with significant decline revisions for previous months.

Companies have lost 32,000 jobs combined in September, have shown ADP data. Analysts had estimated that the economy would in fact add between 45,000 and 51,000 jobs in September, including government jobs, which the ADP report omits. The ADP survey also included a downward revision for August, showing that US companies have in fact lost 3,000 jobs this month, rather than adding 54,000 jobs as previously believed.

September data has seen the largest payroll reduction since March 2023, Bloomberg reported.

And the impacts are not fair. Employers of less than 500 employees have lost jobs, according to ADP numbers, while companies of 500 or more employees added them.

“Despite the strong economic growth we saw in the second quarter, the release of this month also validates what we saw on the job market, that American employers were cautious with hiring,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist of the ADP.

Although the ADP Jobs count is remarkable, in particular in the middle of the blackout data caused by the closure, the data always fall below the number of gold standard produced by the federal statistical system, said economists of Morgan Stanley in a report.

“We are reluctant to count on ADP data,” said economists, citing a less transparent methodology and other differences.

This underlines the idea that experts have rejected in conversations with TPM: that federal compromise economic data cannot be easily reproduced by the private industry. Private surveys use participants in the less expansive and diversified survey, experts said, and are also subject to much less public disclosure requirements. Indeed, access to private data sets can cost thousands of dollars.

In response to an investigation into the impact of closure on federal data, the White House spokesman Kush Desai accused the Democrats for the deadlock of the government.

“Companies, families, decision-makers and markets are counting on timely and precise public data for their decision-making, and it is regrettable that Democrats joyfully launch a key in our economy by closing the government to push gifts for illegal immigrants,” said Desai in an email.

The BLS Jobs Openings and Labor Revitover report, published on Tuesday just before the start of the closure, revealed a market for stagnant jobs. In August, employers also have no new jobs either and did not necessarily cut jobs either. The construction industry was particularly affected by prices on imports related to materials and lost 115,000 jobs in August, the strongest loss in industry.

Meanwhile, inflation continues to increase. The BLS consumer price index for August, published in the middle of last month, has shown that inflation for urban consumers has increased by 0.4% from one year to the next, most since January.

The BL and other government agencies that follow the crucial economic data will remain closed as long as the closure continues. Meanwhile, families and societies could also be left in the dark on the worsening of inflation.