What happens when the data takes a month off?

Marketplace

American Public Media

Business, News

4.6 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With the government shutdown officially over, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is back at work after a 43-day hiatus. But all that missed data can’t be recreated — and catching up while understaffed will be difficult. In this episode: What reports will BLS prioritize and what’ll be left behind? Plus: Solar projects rush to finish before a tax credit deadline, Disney stops reporting its streaming subscriber numbers, and businesses strategize for a world without pennies.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is perhaps a new idea for some, but stocks go down too, you know, from American public media.
0:10.6	This is Marketplace.
0:17.0	In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizzdahl.
0:23.6	It is Thursday.
0:24.9	Today, this one is the 13th of November.
0:27.3	Good as always to have you along, everybody.
0:30.5	Well, here we are.
0:33.0	The shutdown's over.
0:34.4	Food assistance programs are going to pick back up.
0:37.2	Air traffic controllers and TSA agents are going to pick back up. Air traffic controllers and
0:38.4	TSA agents are going to get paid, and government economic data is going to start coming again.
0:45.1	Now, all three of those things are good things, so stipulated. But should you be looking for a reason
0:51.5	or three that Wall Street went belly up today,
0:58.6	I would offer the prospect that the government economic data we are getting set to start getting again,
1:00.7	maybe ain't going to be so good.
1:06.0	That anticipated weakness, by the by, is also contributing to a dawning realization that maybe the Federal Reserve is going to decide that it's not going to cut rates come its December meeting.
1:12.5	I mention all of that as a way to get to this.
1:15.8	Had the shutdown not happened, the Bureau of Labor Statistics would have released the October Consumer Price Index today.
1:22.6	It didn't, obviously.
1:24.2	And in point of fact, even as the BLS gets back to work today, some data might be lost and gone forever.
1:31.7	Marketplaces Carla Javier gets his going.
1:34.2	Skipping the October numbers might be the Bureau's only option, says Jesse Rothstein, at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former Department of Labor economist.
	...

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