new economy

　　

BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Caroline Levet, the press secretary of the White House, warned on November 12 that due to the federal government's "shutdown", the statistics of the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) and employment data for October "might never" be released. This would leave the U.S. Federal Reserve Committee "blind" when making decisions.

Levet said at a media briefing on November 12 that even if the federal government ends the "shutdown", the CPI and employment data statistics for October might still be "permanently damaged" and unable to be released, which would leave the Fed's decision-makers "blind" during critical periods. Levet also said that the Democrats "might have permanently damaged the federal statistical system".

Due to the differences between the Democratic and Republican parties in healthcare-related welfare expenditures in the U.S. Congress, the Senate failed to pass a new temporary appropriations bill before the end of the last fiscal year in September, resulting in the depletion of funds for maintaining the normal operation of the federal government and the "shutdown" starting on October 1.

This week, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives successively passed a temporary appropriations bill that is due to expire in January next year, and on the evening of November 12, it was submitted to President Trump for signature into law, ending the 43-day record of the federal government's "shutdown". However, given that the two parties still need to negotiate on other annual appropriations that the temporary bill does not cover, the "shutdown" might still recur.

During the federal government's "shutdown", the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as the official statistical agency of the United States, was largely in a state of shutdown, and its data statistics function was affected: The employment data report for September was basically completed before the "shutdown", but could only be released after the "shutdown" ended; The CPI data report for the same month was delayed by several days and released in October, but the compilation process was extremely sloppy. According to AFP, the Bureau of Labor Statistics urgently recalled several employees who were forced to take unpaid leave due to the "shutdown" and managed to complete the task.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has not responded to the media's request for comment.

According to the website of Politico, the economic data reports released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are crucial for global investment decisions, the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve, and a series of other important economic policy-making. Industry insiders have been warning for weeks that the ongoing "stall" deadlock, which has been dragging on for a long time, will cause damage to the government statistical agency. Even if the Bureau of Labor Statistics "recovers" the data later, it will still obtain flawed data due to the memory bias of the respondents.

It is reported that the leadership of the Federal Reserve is scheduled to hold a monetary policy meeting in the second week of December. If it is as the White House expected, the CPI and employment data statistics report for October cannot be released, and the Federal Reserve may be forced to make decisions with incomplete information.

To fill the data "vacuum", the US Automatic Data Processing Company (ADP) has recently launched weekly employment data in addition to the traditional monthly employment data report. However, some industry insiders emphasize that the economic data compiled by private institutions cannot replace the comprehensive data released by government agencies. Most of the data provided by these institutions can be regarded as "junk". (Editor: Lei Zheqiong, Jiang Jie)