【By Zhang Jingjuan, Observers Net】The six-week U.S. government shutdown crisis has triggered a chain reaction, and its impact on the economic governance system has shown unprecedented destructive power.

According to the Wall Street Journal, on November 12 local time, White House Press Secretary Levitt stated that due to the long-term closure of federal agencies, two important reports on October inflation and employment "are likely never to be released." This is the first time the White House has raised doubts about whether the employment report for October will be published.

"All economic data that should have been released will be permanently damaged," said Levitt, blaming Democrats for the shutdown, claiming it led the Federal Reserve policymakers to make blind decisions during a critical period.

It is worth noting that later that day, President Trump officially signed the temporary funding bill passed by the Senate and House of Representatives. The federal government "shutdown" incident, which started on October 1 and lasted 43 days, setting a record for the longest in U.S. history, officially ended.

This governance crisis, caused by partisan political maneuvering, has severely impacted multiple areas of people's livelihood, including food assistance, health insurance benefits, and civil aviation transportation.

Inflation and employment reports are key references for the Federal Reserve in formulating monetary policy, and the quality of their data directly affects major decisions such as interest rate cuts. According to the report, the absence of recent official economic reports has led economists and investors to search for other clues, including a series of private sector reports and estimates.

These non-official information shows that U.S. job growth remains weak, with possible increases in layoffs. The measures taken by several well-known companies to cut tens of thousands of white-collar positions also confirm this trend. Thousands of government workers who had delayed resignations under the Trump administration only officially left in October, an issue that is expected to lower the overall employment data for that month.

Looking back at the last available federal data, the unemployment rate in August was 4.3%, with employers adding 22,000 jobs, continuing the trend of significantly slowed job creation since the beginning of this year. Previously, it was revealed that the Trump administration attempted to weaken signals of weak employment by adjusting statistical methods, to create a more reasonable policy environment for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.

Regarding the subsequent arrangements for data release, the White House refused to provide further information. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has also not yet indicated when it might begin processing the accumulated important economic reports, nor has it specified which reports may be affected by the government shutdown.

White House Press Secretary Levitt, Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal pointed out that after the government reopens, the BLS is expected to quickly release the backlog of September employment reports, as the data collection for this report was completed before the shutdown began on October 1, originally scheduled to be released on October 3.

However, the publication of October data faces challenges, with the core issue being that government staff were completely unable to conduct statistical collection work during the shutdown.

Nevertheless, some data such as employment creation and wholesale prices may be salvaged, as companies will directly provide some data to the BLS. However, according to analysts tracking the government statistics system, other important indicators such as consumer prices are difficult to reconstruct afterwards.

For employment data, it may be difficult to trace whether people had jobs last month. The household survey used to calculate the unemployment rate is mainly conducted by phone.

Regarding inflation, government price investigators failed to track price changes on time. "You can't go into Costco in mid-November and find out the price of an item in October," wrote Erica Mackintavish, the former director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was fired by Trump this summer over unattractive employment data, on social media. She believes that the October inflation report "cannot be released."

In fact, before Levitt made these remarks, many analysts had different expectations: although the data sources for the October inflation report may be fewer than usual, the Bureau of Labor Statistics would still try to release some data.

"I still believe that the Bureau of Labor Statistics will do everything it can to compile the October Consumer Price Index (CPI) report... even if the report is based on a much smaller sample," wrote inflation insight company analyst Omair Sharif in a report earlier this week.

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