Feedback from a member of President Trump’s cupboard over the weekend have renewed issues that the brand new administration may search to intrude with federal statistics — particularly in the event that they begin to present that the economic system is slipping right into a recession.

In an interview on Fox Information on Sunday, Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, recommended that he deliberate to alter the best way the federal government studies information on gross home product with a purpose to take away the affect of presidency spending.

“You already know that governments traditionally have messed with G.D.P.,” he mentioned. “They depend authorities spending as a part of G.D.P. So I’m going to separate these two and make it clear.”

It wasn’t instantly clear what Mr. Lutnick meant. The essential definition of gross home product is broadly accepted internationally and has been unchanged for many years. It tallies shopper spending, private-sector funding, web exports, and authorities funding and spending to reach at a broad measure of all items and providers produced in a rustic.

The Bureau of Financial Evaluation, which is a part of Mr. Lutnick’s division, already produces an in depth breakdown of G.D.P. into its element elements. Many economists give attention to a measure — generally known as “ultimate gross sales to non-public home purchasers” — that excludes authorities spending and is usually seen as a greater indicator of underlying demand within the economic system. That measure has usually proven stronger progress in latest quarters than general G.D.P. figures.

In latest weeks, nonetheless, there have been mounting indicators elsewhere that the economic system might be shedding momentum. Client spending fell unexpectedly in January, functions for unemployment insurance coverage have been creeping upward, and measures of housing development and residential gross sales have turned down. A forecasting model from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta predicts that G.D.P. may contract sharply within the first quarter of the 12 months, though most personal forecasters nonetheless anticipate modest progress.

Cuts to federal spending and the federal work pressure may act as an extra drag on financial progress in coming months. Eradicating federal spending from G.D.P. calculations, due to this fact, may obscure the affect of the administration’s insurance policies.

“The implication is that it’s OK to control financial information for political acquire,” mentioned David Wilcox, a fellow on the Peterson Institute for Worldwide Economics and director of U.S. financial analysis at Bloomberg Economics, who was the director of analysis and statistics on the Federal Reserve.

Mr. Lutnick made his feedback days after comparable ones by Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who has develop into a pivotal participant behind most of the administration’s insurance policies. Writing on social media, Mr. Musk mentioned on Friday that excluding authorities spending would end in a extra “correct” measure of G.D.P.

“In any other case, you possibly can scale G.D.P. artificially excessive by spending cash on issues that don’t make folks’s lives higher,” Mr. Musk wrote on X, the social media web site he owns.

Economists have lengthy acknowledged that G.D.P., which makes an attempt to measure all the products and providers produced within the nation, is an imperfect measure of the financial output, not to mention of particular person well-being. And authorities providers are notably exhausting to measure, as a result of they usually don’t have a price set by the market.

Nonetheless, excluding the federal government’s contribution completely makes little sense, economists mentioned. That might suggest that academics at personal faculties contributed to the nationwide economic system however that academics at public faculties didn’t, for instance. And it might imply that authorities funding in infrastructure, well being care, catastrophe aid and nationwide protection all held no financial worth.

“Whether or not a federal company buys pencils or a non-public enterprise buys pencils, you wish to measure that pencils have been purchased,” mentioned Wendy Edelberg, director of the Hamilton Mission, an financial coverage arm of the Brookings Establishment. “It doesn’t matter who’s doing the shopping for.”

Authorities spending has contributed to G.D.P. progress lately, however it hasn’t performed an outsize position. Even with out the federal government’s contribution, G.D.P. would have grown at a greater than 2 % price in each 2023 and 2024. Authorities spending detracted from progress in 2022.

Federal statistical companies have lengthy operated with a level of autonomy from the cupboard departments that they’re nominally a part of, following methodologies developed by technocrats inside and outdoors authorities. However consultants lately have warned that independence rests extra on norms than on statutory protections, and that the companies may due to this fact be susceptible to political interference.

Nancy Potok, who was appointed chief statistician for the USA by President Barack Obama and remained within the position for a lot of President Trump’s first time period, mentioned Mr. Lutnick’s feedback have been an indication that these fears might be changing into actuality.

“It’s very regarding,” she mentioned. “It places the U.S. within the firm of nations which can be infamous for fudging the numbers to help failed financial insurance policies.”

Even earlier than Mr. Lutnick’s feedback, customers of presidency information had develop into more and more involved about the opportunity of political interference.

Within the early weeks of the brand new administration, quite a few authorities information units have been taken offline — some have since been restored — and a few data-collection tasks have been canceled. Consultants have additionally expressed concern concerning the affect that layoffs and funds cuts may have on the statistical companies, which have been already struggling to gather information at a time of falling survey response charges.

If political leaders intrude with the info — or even when the general public loses religion within the reliability of official statistics — it may make it tougher for companies and policymakers to make selections, mentioned Maurine Haver, president of Haver Analytics, an financial and monetary information supplier.

“We rely on high-quality, well timed authorities information,” she mentioned. “Companies, the Fed, the federal government themselves depend upon these information to inform us all what’s happening.”

Nonetheless, economists have been skeptical that the administration would be capable to suppress proof of a recession if one have been to happen. If cuts to authorities spending result in private-sector job losses and rising unemployment, the general public will discover.

“You are able to do what you wish to the info, you’re not going to alter folks’s lived expertise,” Ms. Edelberg mentioned. “You’re not going to cover the actual fact of a recession from the general public by altering the numbers.”