Officials have weighed new options for data collection, as well as new technologies that could make the process more efficient.

Trump has selected E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to be the next commissioner at the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Antoni’s nomination was quickly met with a cascade of criticism from other economists, from across the political spectrum.

It raised new alarm about the future of an agency that tracks how the economy of the world's richest country is faring.