BLS Reschedules Consumer Spending Report Without Explanation

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is postponing its annual consumer spending report.

The announcement Friday (Sept. 19), presented without explanation, follows President Donald Trump’s recent firing of the bureau’s head.

“The 2024 Consumer Expenditures annual data release scheduled on September 23, 2025, will be rescheduled to a later date,” the bureau’s announcement said. “We will update users when more information is available.”

Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer last month, claiming that her politics played a role in the agency’s weak monthly jobs report released the same day.

The BLS had also announced a revision to jobs data for the year ended in March that was the largest revision in more than two decades, at 911,000 jobs less than the initial estimates.

According to a report by Bloomberg News on the BLS data delay, the agency has since McEntarfer’s dismissal revised jobs data further, leading to criticism from the White House, which called the preliminary benchmark revisions earlier this month “another blunder in the lengthy history of inaccuracies and incompetence at BLS.”

The report also noted that economists and statisticians say that monthly payrolls revisions are routine, as the BLS continues to collect information from businesses that take longer to reply to the survey. Revisions ultimately make for more accurate data, the report added.

Earlier this month, the Labor Department’s Office of the Inspector General said it had launched a review of the BLS’ “challenges” in collecting and reporting economic data.

In a letter to William J. Wiatrowski, acting commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Laura B. Nicolosi, assistant inspector general for audit, wrote that the review was triggered when the BLS’ announced it will reduce data collection for the Consumer Price Index and the Producer Price Index, and the agency’s recent “large downward revision” of its estimate of new jobs in the Employment Situation Report.

The postponement comes amid signs that consumers are scaling back their spending. For example, data released by the Federal Reserve last week showed the pace of spending slowing, even as many American households splurged on big ticket purchases.

During August, the median year-over-year increase in monthly household spending softened to 4.1%, compared to 4.5% in April and marking the slowest pace since April 2021.

Also last week, the Mastercard Economics Institute (MEI) said it expects holiday spending to increase at a lower rate than last year.

“In 2025, holiday shoppers will be searching for value amid broader economic uncertainty,” MEI said in a news release accompanying its findings. “Their decisions will be driven in part by the health of the labor market and by tariff-related price increases.”