Trump Budget Calls for BLS Cuts, Raising Data Quality Concerns

The Trump administration is proposing to cut resources from the Bureau of Labor Statistics when the agency is already reeling from years of budget constraints, further compounding concerns about the quality and quantity of data produced about the US economy.

The president’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal would reduce BLS’s budget and staffing each by about 8%, according to a budget document from the Labor Department, which oversees the statistical agency. Given those reductions, BLS will have to focus on major figuressuch as the monthly jobs report and the consumer price index, known collectively as Principal Federal Economic Indicators.

“Within ...