How the Fed is filling data gaps to backstop its view of the U.S. economy

Construction workers help build a mixed-use apartment complex in Los Angeles, California.

Two weeks before the U.S. Federal Reserve’s last meeting, with the federal government’s data spigot closed, Atlanta Fed staff backstopped their view of the economy by analyzing how past surveys of business executives had aligned with employment, spending, output and other data captured in federal reports.

The results boosted their confidence that central bank policy-makers still had good, if rough, substitutes available ahead of the Oct. 28-29 meeting, between surveys that proved to closely track the economy, private data the Fed has used for years and new insights from emergent technology firms.

While Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the official data hiatus could make policy-makers more cautious abou