- A key federal agency is increasingly publishing less accurate inflation data thanks in part to a hiring freeze issued by the Trump administration in January. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is part of the Labor Department, is increasingly relying on data collection methods that are less accurate than usual and has stopped tracking inflation figures in three U.S. cities.
Decades of declining quality and accuracy in federal statistics, exacerbated by President Donald Trump’s cuts, have economists questioning data that inform everything from the Federal Reserve’s decisions to Social Security payments for more than 70 million Americans.
