The last time the circulation of government work information and rising cost of living data stopped, then-commissioner Erica Groshen remembers being holed up in the Bureau of Labor Stats head office with two associates rather than the thousands that typically worked there.
It was October 2013 The government had just shut down due to a funding fight over the Affordable Care Act that eventually lasted 16 days, and the trio was functioning the phones in a vacant office.
“Individuals were quite stunned when they called the BLS and I addressed,” Groshen, who’s currently a senior economics expert at Cornell College, informs Money.
Twelve years later on, the federal government is shut down once more over yet one more Affordable Treatment Act fight, and that implies the BLS is behind on essential financial information launches. On Friday, the bureau did not publish its highly anticipated tasks report for the month of September. The next major launch is the September customer rate index (rising cost of living report), which is set up for Oct. 15 Lots of insiders are worried it could be delayed or missed altogether.
Throughout the last shutdown in December 2018 and January 2019, the BLS had the team and financing to launch vital economic reports on schedule. That’s not the instance this time around.
The hold-up of economic information releases may seem like an intangible political problem, but it can have real-life consequences for daily Americans. Apart from being the benchmark inflation indication, the September CPI record is especially important in figuring out the cost-of-living adjustment, or soda, for 70 million Social Security recipients.
The BLS inflation reports for the months of July, August and September are required to create the soda pop, which is based on an action called the CPI-W that goes along with each release.
If the shutdown continues with the initial week of October, it will likely postpone or cancel the Oct. 15 rising cost of living record– which will press back the soda pop news, according to William Beach, a previous BLS commissioner.
In other words: No inflation report, no soda pop news.
What we do understand is that in 2013, the September CPI report was postponed by two weeks , inevitably pushing the COLA announcement for the list below year back, also– to Oct. 30 Relying on how much time the 2025 shutdown is, the COLA news this year might be late, too.
The Social Safety and security Management doesn’t in fact do the COLA computation itself, states Beach, who’s now the executive supervisor of Financial Laboratory on Capitol Hillside. He states the BLS determines the soda and hands it off to the Social Security Management, which then commonly reveals it a couple of hours later (after it has actually been certified by the Office of Administration and Spending Plan, or OMB).
Groshen includes that any time an essential economic data release escape timetable, the BLS can’t just press release as soon as staffers come back in the workplace. The off-schedule publication would need to be approved by OMB first, potentially causing even more delays.
The bright side, according to Coastline, is that all the rising cost of living data required to calculate the soda has already been accumulated. It simply requires to be refined.
To be clear, the government shutdown will not influence the actual soda pop for 2026, which is presently approximated to be 2 7 % Only the timing of the news of the soda is up in the air. (The circulation of Social Protection payments is not affected by government closures anyway.)
When will certainly we know the 2026 SODA?
If the COLA news is without a doubt delayed, staffing levels at the BLS might play a role in when we get the main number. Due to sweeping federal workforce cuts, headcount at the BLS is presently down by about 20 % from previous managements, Groshen states. So when the government does re-open, it might take the bureau a while to capture up.
Beach verifies there are even less individuals than regular in the office during the recurring closure. Only acting BLS commissioner William Wiatrowski is authorized to work, and “he can’t do anything,” Beach claims, like gathering data or releasing reports.
In an emailed statement to Money, Wiatrowski claims, “I can confirm that I am the only BLS employee on the permanent exemption checklist during the lapse in appropriation.”
He includes that the bureau has “put on hold information collection, processing, and dissemination” as a result of the closure and will resume normal operations as soon as moneying is recovered.
When that might be is any individual’s hunch. Republicans and Democrats both seem excavating in their heels, threatening to lengthen the 3rd federal government closure under President Donald Trump.
And Social Safety recipients aren’t the just one viewing Washington. Other than the COLA, the data stockpile “presents a genuine difficulty for the Federal Get,” Groshen states. The Fed– charged with preserving complete employment and steady prices– cut rates of interest in September for the first time in 2025
The BLS information releases arranged for this month were meant to be the very first pulse check on just how the economic climate reacted to the rate decrease.
“This is when the data are most substantial,” Groshen states. “And to be flying blind, purposefully, makes it even worse.”
Much more from Money:
6 Federal Solutions That Will Not Be Impacted by the Federal Government Closure
When Social Safety Recipients Will Get Their Checks in October
New Bill Goals to ‘In Fact’ End Tax Obligations on Social Safety