Warren Calls for Trump Administration to Release Critical September Employment Data Before Fed Meets to Set Monetary Policy Affecting All Americans
“Americans facing higher costs for essentials deserve better than a Fed operating with partial data when making decisions that directly impact their wallets.”
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, sent a letter to Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Mark Calabria, Chief Statistician of the United States, calling for the Trump Administration to release the September Employment Situation report before the Federal Reserve’s next Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting at the end of October. Ranking Member Warren had called on the Trump Administration to release the September jobs report as scheduled on October 3. The Trump Administration announced earlier this month the recall of staff from furlough to prepare the September Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.
“While I support OMB’s decision to recall BLS staff to ensure September’s CPI data will be released before month’s end, I remain deeply concerned that the Administration lacks a comprehensive plan to ensure other critical economic indicators are released in a timely manner – including the September Employment Situation (i.e., jobs report), which I ask that you publish before the Fed meets at the end of this month, if not sooner,” wrote Ranking Member Warren.
“With BLS employees returning from furlough to work on the September CPI report, there is no operational reason the agency could not also release the September jobs report this month,” the Ranking Member continued. “Yet according to BLS’s announcement regarding the updated September CPI release date, ‘(n)o other releases will be rescheduled or produced until the resumption of regular government services.’” Ranking Member Warren highlighted that BLS had a legal requirement to release the data, which, under decades-old law must be “publish(ed) at least once each month.”
Ranking Member Warren expressed concern about the Fed’s ability to make informed monetary policy decisions without updated jobs data: “Without September jobs data that you could release now, FOMC members will be forced to make consequential monetary policy decisions based on incomplete information. Americans facing higher costs for essentials deserve better than a Fed operating with partial data when making decisions that directly impact their wallets.”
“The American people, financial markets, policymakers, and the Federal Reserve all depend on transparent, timely access to accurate economic data, and without such data, the entire economy is at risk. The Trump Administration must act accordingly and ensure that all of this data is released in a timely fashion,” she concluded.
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