Computerworld - It may soon be harder to track whether the U.S. is in fact sliding into a recession with the closing of the U.S. Department of Commerce's EconomicIndicators.gov Web site. The site provides a public portal to key economic indicator data from the government.

The department's Economics and Statistics Administration announced that the site, which provides daily updates of key economic indicators released by the government's Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Census Bureau, will be shut down on March 1 because of "budgetary constraints."

Amanda Terkel, deputy research director at the Center for American Progess, noted that the site has been particularly useful because people can sign up to receive e-mails as soon as new economic data across government agencies becomes available. "While the data will still be available online at various federal Web sites, it will be less readily accessible to the public," she added.

In an e-mail announcing the closing of the site, the Commerce Department offered a free quarterly subscription to STAT-USA/Internet service that provides economic and business data. "Once this temporary subscription runs out, however, the public will be forced to pay a fee," Terkel noted. "So not only will economic data be more hidden, it will also cost money."

Michael Masnick, president and CEO of IT research firm Techdirt, noted that the timing of the closure raises some questions.

"Of course, to actually call a recession, the general consensus is that there would need to be two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth," Masnick added. "So how would you measure that growth? Well, apparently the White House would prefer to make it as difficult as possible. It's not that difficult to manage a Web site. If it's really so expensive to manage, why not throw it open and make it into a wiki?"

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Sign of a faltering economy? Feds to close economic indicator site

EconomicIndicators.gov will be shuttered on March 1 because of 'budgetary constraints.'

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