'Obfuscation tactics': Trump moves to hide key data as economy careens 'toward a downturn'

All signs are pointing to a coming recession as U.S. President Donald Trump imposes tariffs on close trading partners, oversees mass firings of civil servants, and pushes for cuts to public services—but by firing economists, advisers, and other experts tasked with advising federal agencies on economic shifts, the administration is working to ensure that the government and the public can't read those signs.

As Politico reported Friday, experts serving on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) Technical Advisory Committee were informed this week that they were no longer needed, leaving the BLS without a panel that has long advised the Labor Department on how economic changes can impact data collection.

A page for the committee was removed from the Labor Department's website, along with one that had information about the Data Users Advisory Committee, which has advised on how businesses and policymakers can use the agency's economic reports.

"It would be a bad sign for a software company to cancel all beta testing if you expect to keep making better software," Michael Madowitz, an economist at the Roosevelt Institute who served on the data users committee, told Politico. "This feels like the same sort of thing."

The dismissal of the advisers follows the disbanding by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick of another advisory board that has worked for years to ensure the government produces accurate data on economic indicators—the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee (FESAC), which worked under the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.

"If laying off tens or hundreds of thousands of federal workers is going to drag down macroeconomic indicators in ways that are unhelpful to them, they're apparently quite willing to just rewrite definitions so they can insulate themselves to the extent possible from the fallout."

"Reduced transparency in official statistics is perhaps the most troubling aspect of disbanding FESAC," wrote Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist, at Bloomberg on March 11. "Cutting off agency staff from external advisers creates an environment where political interference could occur much more easily—and go undetected. With political officials such as Lutnick arguing publicly that GDP should exclude government spending, it is especially important to have external, independent experts."

On Wednesday, the Federal Housing Finance Authority also placed workers who helped compile its home price index on administrative leave.

The dismantling of much of the federal government's data analysis apparatus comes amid the illegal firing of the two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission just after one called on FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson to take 10 steps to lower prices for U.S. consumers.

"This administration wants to write its own narrative," Stephanie Kelton, a professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University, toldThe Nation after the disbanding of FESAC. "If laying off tens or hundreds of thousands of federal workers is going to drag down macroeconomic indicators in ways that are unhelpful to them, they're apparently quite willing to just rewrite definitions so they can insulate themselves to the extent possible from the fallout."

The latest advisory committee firings this week came as the Federal Reserve projected higher unemployment, faster inflation, and slower growth—or "stagflation." Economic growth this year was projected to be 2.1% in the last weeks of former President Joe Biden's administration; the Fed now expects 1.7% growth, as well as the unemployment rate rising to 4.4%.

Other negative economic indicators include the largest manufacturing decline in nearly two years, according to the New York Federal Reserve's Manufacturing Index, and declining consumer confidence, with bars and restaurants reporting their largest sales decline last month since February 2023.

Members of Trump's own administration are increasingly admitting that a recession could be in the near future, but as Lindsay Owens, executive director of progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative, said Friday, "the Trump administration is testing whether you can prevent a recession with a disappearing act."

"Unfortunately tossing a scarf over the GDP numbers doesn't change the fact that their policies have us careening toward a downturn," said Owens. "The fact that they are ramping up their obfuscation tactics confirms it."