In an email that the BLS sent to economists, viewed by The Associated Press, the agency said that it “temporarily reduced the number of outlets and quotes it attempted to collect due to a staffing shortage” in April. The reduced data collection “will be kept in place until the hiring freeze is lifted.”
“The PPI is cutting hundreds of indexes from production, and the CPI is now being constructed with less data,” Omair Sharif, chief economist at the consulting firm Inflation Insights, said in an email. “That alone is worrying given that we’re heading into the teeth of the tariff impact on prices.”
The BLS said that the cutbacks “have minimal impact” on the overall inflation data, but “they may increase the volatility” of the reported prices of specific items.
Sharif and other economists said the BLS hasn’t released enough information to judge how big an impact the cutbacks are having on the inflation figures. But it could make them slightly less accurate.
“When you have a reduced sample size, it introduces more error into the estimate,” Sharif said. “It creates the potential for the indexes to be more volatile and potentially less accurate.”
Alan Detmeister, an economist at UBS, an investment bank, said the cutbacks likely had little impact on April’s inflation figures. But “if these types of cuts continue, they will degrade the reliability and efficacy of these statistical agencies,” he said.
The BLS compiles the monthly inflation reports by sending employees into retail stores across the country to gather thousands of prices. About 60% of the prices used in the inflation data are compiled in person, while about 35% are gathered online and 5% over the phone.
