Missing Labor Data, Squeezing the Economy

My late and loved high school football coach could spin a compliment into a critique flawlessly. Taping a teammate’s ankle one day before practice, my coach told the player, “all you do is come to practice.” While a true statement, what my coach also meant, I think, is that practicing daily versus occasionally is necessary but insufficient. Particularly, it was time for my teammate to step up his efforts. And he did, playing four years of college football then trying out for a pro team. 

Speaking of the necessary, we turn to the monthly federal employment report. It is a necessary but insufficient piece of data to understand how the economy is (not) working. Currently, however, the September jobs report is missing at least in part due to the shutdown of the federal government. Given the reach and size of the U.S. economy, that’s a big problem, one grabbing attention, politically speaking. 

“As families face higher prices,” writes Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), in a letter to the Office of Management and Budget Director Vought and Chief Statistician Calabria, “workers confront a weakening labor market, and businesses navigate increasing economic uncertainty, timely access to this data is critical – particularly for the Federal Reserve (Fed), which meets later this month to make interest rate decisions that affect every American.” 

The adage that time is money in a capitalist economy comes to mind. Accessible employment data is no luxury but a necessity in such an economy. Singing the same tune is Camilla Taylor, the executive director America’s Small Business Network. 

“The lack of reliable reports only adds to market volatility,” according to her. “Our economy’s stability depends on predictability and access to information.””

Economic predictability and stability is the opposite of market volatility. Remove the former factors and reap the latter. Today’s U.S. economy of 800 billionaires concentrating wealth sucked from the bottom and middle to the top is also creating a stock market bubble of inflated valuations that eerily resembles in part the real estate-price spikes that created the conditions spawning the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Predictably and stability are fading fast. 

Taylor continues. “Small businesses feel the impact as consumers tighten their belts in response to a potentially slowing job market. In this fog of uncertainty, consumers pull back spending, and Main Street gets crushed while Washington plays politics.”

The real economy, not the stock market, relies upon consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the U.S. economy. Playing politics as I understand the term captures the impasse of the federal government shutdown, with the future budget of health-care spending the proximate cause of the stalemate. Consumer belt-tightening threatens to increase if/when taxpayer subsidies for the Affordable Care Act expire December 31, and the price of premium payments explode. That would sharply weaken consumer spending. 

Meanwhile, the nation’s small businesses are on the front lines of the economy’s performance, e.g., gauged with the federal jobs report. Wait. There has been none since August 2025. 

Welcome to the flying blind school of economics. That doesn’t mean mom-and-pop shops are unaware of what’s happening on Main St. Small businesses don’t need an weatherwoman to tell them which way the wind blows, to paraphrase the acclaimed musician Bob Dylan. 

“Small businesses know firsthand how the economy is going,” according to Frank Knapp, president and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce. Let him count the ways that perception works. Spoiler alert: immigrants’ labor is central to the small business sector stateside. 

Just ask Knapp. “Small business owners are being hammered by immigration enforcement reducing labor supply and consumer demand as well as by tariffs driving up costs and reducing consumer demand.” 

Supply and demand. Economics 101. If this is rocket science, we need a new definition of the term. 

The necessary growth of the labor force to economic health is also on the radar screen of elite policymakers. Consider Chairman Jerome Powell, head of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. He has noted the contractionary, dare I say recessionary, trends underway, rooted in the real economy and ordinary workers. “While the unemployment rate remained low through August,” according to him, “payroll gains have slowed sharply, likely in part due to a decline in labor force growth due to lower immigration and labor force participation.” 

August’s jobless rate and payroll data is what Powell notes. We are near the end of October 2025. Did someone say flying blind of the current jobs report is the new normal?

Further, immigrants are central and not peripheral to the U.S. economy. Apparently Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy and the U.S. homeland security advisor, didn’t get this memo. 

Please note that state-level employment data is also suspended for September 2025. Why? The states rely upon the federal government’s statistical activities to produce state-level jobs data. The federal government’s employer and household surveys, respectively, are the twin sources of estimates for employment and unemployment. 

In the meantime, President Trump’s ICE-driven immigration detention and deportation agenda is shrinking the U.S. labor force and sowing trauma for the nonwhite human beings in the crosshairs across of what some call “enforcement.” Economically speaking, the subtraction of workers from the labor market is in turn slowing job growth in the private sector, where the majority of workers labor. Federal layoffs and furloughs of workers aggravates this trend.

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