Federal government stops tracking consumer prices in Provo, 2 other cities as part of budget cuts

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is cutting back its collection of data on consumer prices, raising questions about the reliability of federal economic statistics under President Donald Trump.

Every month, a small army of government workers visit stores and other businesses across the country to check prices of eggs, underwear, haircuts, and tens of thousands of other goods and services. The data collected is the basis for the inflation measures that determine cost-of-living increases in union contracts and Social Security benefits and that guide policymakers at the Federal Reserve when they set interest rates, among other applications.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is part of the Labor Department, said Wednesday that it was reducing its collection of price data “in areas across the country” and that it had stopped gathering data entirely in Buffalo, New York; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Provo, Utah. The agency did not give a specific reason for the cuts, but said it “makes reductions when current resources can no longer support the collection effort.”

Economists said the cuts were the latest blow to a statistical system that was already struggling to maintain the quality of its data in the face of tight budgets and declining response rates to government surveys.

William Beach, who led the Bureau of Labor Statistics during Trump’s first term, said there was a longer-run concern. If the public loses faith in government data, people and businesses will be less likely to provide the information the agencies rely on — further eroding the quality of the data.

“It has to be gold standard — everything you produce has to be that way,” he said. “When you start to work around cost issues or personnel issues or political issues from the White House, the numbers begin to suffer and trust drops.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.