US government shutdown hinders key data insights, impact of Trump’s tariffs

In addition to problems caused by data shortages, Cook is also locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration over her position.

“It is a challenging time to give an outlook speech,” Cook said, pointing out that many data points that she regularly uses to assess the economy – from employment data to price indices – are now on hold.

“The longer the shutdown lasts, the more data could be disrupted.”

Currently, Fed officials are using a wide variety of data from administrative sources to continually evaluate the state of the economy in real time, including state-level data and various private sector providers.