The Federal Reserve’s new boss thinks the central bank is working with stale ingredients. Kevin Warsh, who took the helm on May 22, 2026, told staff in an internal message that the Fed considers some of its economic data to be outdated and needs to find better alternatives.
In a note circulated on June 2, Warsh laid out a vision for the Fed that sounds less like a central bank memo and more like a tech company’s product roadmap. The institution responsible for steering the world’s largest economy, he argued, must evolve beyond conventional practices to keep pace with faster technological advancements.
What Warsh is actually proposing
Warsh has assembled a data task force that’s developing recommendations for how official statistics get produced. The task force is working directly with the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Department of Commerce, the two agencies responsible for the inflation readings, jobs reports, and GDP figures that move markets every month.
The goal isn’t to throw out existing data. It’s to supplement it with newer, potentially more accurate measures of what’s happening in the real economy. Warsh’s note specifically referenced the need for improved ways to evaluate productivity and inflation, two metrics that have been notoriously tricky to measure in an increasingly digital economy.
