This’ll be a fairly eventful week on the macro front in the US, where the BLS will take a stab at tallying consumer and producer price growth.

If that effort was guesswork before, federal hiring freezes instituted by the Trump administration risk making it a statistical shot in the dark.

Whether the accuracy of the main aggregates is impacted or not, curtailments to data collection for both the CPI and PPI reports are widely expected to introduce more volatility into the series at a time when businesses and consumers are struggling to make sense of erratic policymaking, particularly around tariffs.

A lot of effort goes into calculating the monthly inflation reports. As the BLS details in their FAQs, “data collectors visit (in person, on the web, or using apps) or call thousands of retail stores, service establishments, rental units and doctors’ offices, all over the United States” in the course of recording prices for some 80,000 items.

Every, single month. They do that every, single month. Or at least they used to. Now, the effort’s impeded by staff shortages. In April, the BLS stopped collecting CPI inputs entirely in two large US cities, and in another this month. Starting with the July release, the bureau plans to end calculation and publication of some 350 PPI indexes.

Presumably, that all means extrapolation will play a bigger role in the calculation of US inflation figures. In a bureaucracy Donald Trump’s determined to subdue. At a moment when Trump really needs the inflation data to be favorable. Draw your own conclusions.

According to one former BLS commissioner who spoke to the AP, the agency’s “lost about 15% of its personnel since the beginning of the year.” Part of that, she suggested, is attrition. “Falling morale stemming from attacks on government workers by Elon Musk,” as the AP described it.

With all that in mind, core CPI’s expected at 0.3% MoM for May. Even if it’s a “low” 0.3%, it’d be the briskest monthly pace in five.

On a YoY basis, underlying inflation’s seen moving up to 2.9%. That’d be the first increase in the annual rate since January.

The hope is that continued moderation in services prices helps offset any trade-related pressure on the goods side. Notwithstanding a recovery following Trump’s tariff detente with China early last month, US household sentiment’s pretty subdued. The sense of foreboding among consumers may help curb discretionary spending, blunting price hikes for all the “stuff” subjected to Trump’s levies.

I’d be completely remiss not to reiterate that we shouldn’t be having this conversation. All of this — staff cuts which impede government agencies in their efforts to check the inflation pulse, higher prices for an array of consumer goods due to arbitrary levies, bipolar swings in consumer confidence measures and so on — is totally unnecessary. This is manufactured melodrama.

Ahead of CPI on Wednesday, market participants and macro watchers will get the latest installment of the NY Fed’s consumer poll (Monday) and an update on small business sentiment (Tuesday). PPI’s due Thursday and on Friday, The University Of Michigan will release the preliminary results of June’s consumer sentiment polling.

The Michigan survey will be eyed closely for any improvement stemming from what we’re all supposed to call a “softer” stance on trade from The White House. The problem with that narrative is that past a certain point, the nausea from constant tariff to and fro may overwhelm any relief that’d normally stem from lower negotiated trade duties.

On Sunday, at 2:41 AM on the east coast, Trump declared masks illegal at protests in the course of advertising the deployment of National Guard personnel to Los Angeles, where demonstrations against ICE raids turned violent in recent days. On Saturday, Pete Hegseth said he’s prepared to send active duty Marines to the city.

Looks like it’s gonna be a hot summer. Welcome back 2020. All that’s missing is deadly viral pneumonia.