Economists Question Accuracy of Inflation Data

A hiring freeze at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) could affect the reliability of its inflation or consumer price index (CPI) data, economists told the Wall Street Journal. The data is calculated by workers, called enumerators, who check business prices across several U.S. cities. If there aren’t enough enumerators to find the price for a specific item or service, the BLS will instead make an educated guess based on a comparable product. That could result in inaccuracies.

“But in April, with fewer workers on hand to check prices, statisticians had to base their guesses on less comparable products or other regions of the country—a process called “different-cell imputation”—much more often than usual, according to the BLS,” said the WSJ.

Federal Job Freeze Risks Accuracy of Government Economic Data

Inflation calculated by the CPI is an extremely important economic statistic, affecting everything from the federal funds interest rate to tax brackets to Treasury yields. The U.S. has long been lauded for its accurate economic data, although this issue has put its reliability in the spotlight. It’s not clear if the BLS has been affected by the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) federal employee job cuts.

“We don’t know if this is a big issue or a small issue, but we just know that directionally, it’s making things worse,” said UBS Economist Alan Detmeister.

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