Hassett: Economic Data During Shutdown 'Cloudy'

The full economic impact of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history may never be fully known because some federal surveys were not completed, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Tuesday.

The White House announced in late October that inflation data for that month might not be released in November because federal surveyors cannot be deployed to the field amid the ongoing shutdown.

"Because surveyors cannot deploy to the field, the White House has learned there will likely NOT be an inflation release next month for the first time in history," the White House said in its statement.

Speaking on CNBC's "Money Movers" on Tuesday, Hassett said he does not know when the administration plans to release economic data from October.

"I haven't been briefed on that yet because there's been quite a lot of disruption because of this terrible shutdown," Hassett said.

"I've been told that some of the surveys were never actually completed, so we'll never perhaps even know what happened in that month," he added.

Hassett noted that the National Economic Council will be "staring a little bit in cloudy, cloudy weather for a while until we get the data agencies back up."

• Hassett: Fourth-Quarter GDP Could Be Negative If Shutdown Drags On
• Hassett: Moderate Dems Likely to Help End Shutdown Soon