Government Shutdown Leaves Federal Reserve Without Key Data

09:04 AM EDT, 10/01/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Among the many impacts of the current federal government shutdown is the postponement of key government-produced economic data releases, sources of information that the Federal Reserve will want as it considers another rate reduction at its next meeting, Oct. 28-29.

While the Fed, as a self-funded entity, will continue to operate during the shutdown, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which publishes Friday's employment data and inflation data due mid-month, and the Census Bureau, which produces reports on retail sales, manufacturing, and construction, among others, will be shuttered for the length of the shutdown.

During a shutdown, workers are not allowed to prepare upcoming data releases or publish completed reports. The various agencies will likely publish a revised schedule of releases when the government reopens.

The most recent shutdown in 2018-2019 was also the longest, a partial closure that lasted 35 days, causing significant schedule changes for data releases. Some were delayed so long that two months of data were subsequently released at the same time.

In the meantime, the Fed will need to rely on privately sourced data, such as Wednesday morning's ADP private payrolls report.

Fed officials repeatedly refer to their decision-making process as "data-dependent," but Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman said on Sept. 26 that the Federal Open Market Committee needs to shift its focus from the data-dependency that it has followed since the pandemic to forward-looking forecasts.

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