The Census Bureau has provided “an overview of how the Economic Indicators Division of the U.S. Census Bureau has planned to recover from” the federal government shutdown this Fall.
The “Bureau’s plan to issue missed PFEI releases must result in delivery of time series with no gaps or missing reference periods and where all reference periods remain comparable” and “ensure that release dates return to their original timing as quickly as possible.”
The shutdown did not affect the August reference period. While response data for September is available, it requires further processing, and certain indicators requiring field collection were not collected. There was no collection or processing in October. Most interestingly, even though the shutdown ended “on November 12, all collection and processing for November reference periods forward cannot begin until previous periods are completed.”
The plan lays out the Census Bureau’s strategy to accelerate and condense processing schedules to get back on track as quickly as possible.
- RECOVERY PLAN FOR CENSUS’ PRINCIPAL FEDERAL ECONOMIC INDICATORS OCT-NOV 2025 LAPSE https://www.census.gov/econ/indicators/census-pfei-recovery-2025-lapse-in-funding.pdf
