As the federal government enters day one of a shutdown, roughly 580,000 federal workers are furloughed, and the White House says some could be laid off.
“We are going to have to lay some people off if the shutdown continues,” Vice President JD Vance said during a White House press briefing Wednesday.
Agencies that release key economic data will be suspending their reports. Starting Friday, the monthly jobs report won’t come out from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Inflation readings due in mid-October will also be affected.
“The collection of that data is being interrupted as we speak,” Bankrate Senior Economic Analyst Mark Hamrick said.
Hamrick says that lack of data can hurt decisionmaking for businesses, households and the Federal Reserve, which meets at the end of the month to make interest rate decisions.
“They will make their decision one way or the other based on the available information, but it adds to the risk that they make something that is less than an optimal decision,” Hamrick said.
The shutdown comes as the economy lost 32,000 private sector jobs in September, according to a report from the payroll company ADP.
“It is now a very bad time to have a government shutdown because we are in a very bad economy,” California Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu said.
Rep. Lieu says Americans are already hurting, and this will make things worse.
“Trump’s economy is crushing Americans financially,” he added.
But Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville says people should not be concerned.
“This is not going to last that long anyway. Keep living your life. Don’t worry about the nonsense up here. We’ll eventually come together and pass a budget or a CR,” Sen. Tuberville said.
Hamrick says he doesn’t think the shutdown will have lasting economic impacts “as long as it doesn’t continue for a long time.”
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