Trump administration estimates shutdown will cost twice as much as originally thought: report

The Trump administration now estimates that the ongoing partial government shutdown will cost twice as much as it originally estimated.

An official with the administration told CNBC this week that the administration initially had estimated the shutdown would prompt a 0.1 percentage point subtraction from growth every two weeks, but that figure has since doubled.

{mosads}According to the outlet, the Trump administration now estimates that the shutdown is resulting in a 0.1 percentage point subtraction from growth every week.

The administration’s initial estimate only accounted for the economic impact of the roughly 800,000 federal workers who have been furloughed or forced to work without pay for the time being, the official told CNBC. The official said the administration now believes the economy will be hit twice as hard due to losses from private contractors who have been impacted by the shutdown.

Some economists are having difficulties obtaining data that could show a fuller picture of the shutdown’s impact due to the shutdown — a number of federal data collectors and analysts have been furloughed.

The problem is expected to delay the December retail sales report, which is scheduled to be released on Wednesday.

According to CNBC, the shutdown is making it unlikely that the government will reach its Jan. 30 deadline to issue the fourth-quarter gross domestic product report.

An official with the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis could not confirm to CNBC whether the report can be issued.

“It’s a little more complicated this time compared to similar events in the past because some data providing agencies are open, while others are closed. Once we are back up and running, we will complete our evaluation and publish a revised press release schedule for all of our economic indicators,” the official told CNBC.