Joseph Adinolfi

Sun, Jun 8, 2025, 6:00 AM5 min read

Investors have been navigating an increasingly hazy outlook for the U.S. economy, as surveys of consumer sentiment have appeared to clash with so-called hard data regarding the state of the labor market.

Creeping doubts about the quality of U.S. economic reports certainly won’t make this task any easier.

• I have $1,000 in credit-card debt. Will I be able to hide my inheritance from the bank?

• ‘I prepaid our mom’s rent for a year’: My sister is a millionaire and never helps our mother. How do I cut her out of her will?

• Third time lucky? Citi changes its S&P target once more after index hits 6,000.

• I bought my mother-in-law a condo — and she took out a $30,000 car loan. Now she refuses to get a roommate.

• My local restaurant charges a 5% container charge and 3% kitchen-service fee. Is this nuts?

Fresh questions about the reliability of official data surfaced this week, after the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that it had to cut back on some regional collection efforts that were part of the tabulation of the consumer-price index in April, and again in June, because “current resources can no longer support the collection effort.”

The cutbacks, caused by a federal government hiring freeze, won’t impact the headline CPI numbers that investors tend to focus on most closely, the agency said in a statement published on its website — although it could increase the volatility of certain details within the report. A representative for the BLS didn’t offer any further comment when contacted by MarketWatch.

See: There’s a frenzy in Washington over the accuracy of a key measure of U.S. inflation. Here’s what’s happening.

The next iteration of the CPI report, which would offer investors the first major insight into the level of inflation in May, is due to be released on Wednesday. Another inflation reading focused on producer prices will follow a day later.

For decades, U.S. economic data were widely considered the most comprehensive and most reliable among major developed economies. But recently, some economists and investors have highlighted what they see as flaws or shortcomings that could impact key economic reports, including labor data like the monthly nonfarm-payrolls report released this past Friday.

“This is a problem that we all kind of know about, but we just kind of ignore it and move forward because perception is reality in this market,” said Eric Pachman, chief analytics officer at Bancreek Capital Advisors, during an interview with MarketWatch on Friday.

The Federal Reserve relies on the personal-consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, a separate inflation gauge, as the basis for its policy decision-making. The central bank outsources the collection of these data to federal statistical agencies.