The new inflation report will probably be the last for a while — and it could leave markets and Americans in the dark about how much prices are rising.
"Democrats choosing to keep the government closed will likely result in no October inflation report, which will leave businesses, markets, families, and the Federal Reserve in disarray," Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on X following the release of September's consumer price index report Friday morning.
That would make the consumer price index report yet another casualty of the ongoing government shutdown, which has left thousands of federal workers working without pay or furloughed entirely since October 1, and federal agencies — like the Bureau of Labor Statistics — operating with skeleton crews.
The CPI report is based largely on ongoing data collection that the BLS typically does, sending out federal workers to check on around 80,000 prices a month in businesses across the country to measure how much everything from apartment rents to coffee to sewing machines costs. Those workers are all sitting idle as the shutdown drags on, hampering the Bureau's ability to report on those price changes.
"All active data collection activities are paused while the government is shut down," a BLS spokesperson said. "Once funding is restored, BLS will resume normal operations and notify the public of any changes to the news release schedule on the BLS release calendar."
Should the October report not go out as scheduled, the impact might not be felt as much by everyday Americans, Stephen Kates, a financial analyst at Bankrate, told Business Insider.
"Whether we produce the report or not, prices are going to do what they're going to do, and overall they're going to move a little bit probably in an upward direction," Kates said. "What this really does, and the biggest negative of this, is that it leaves policymakers, businesses just completely flatfooted on how to navigate this kind of environment."
However, the lack of an October report could weigh on the Federal Reserve as it considers its approach to interest rates and monetary policy.
"The Federal Reserve won't have that information when it makes its monetary policy decisions, and it will look for any other evidence it can find," Erica Groshen, a former commissioner of the BLS and current economics advisor at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said. "I think they'll scrounge everywhere they could, but they won't have the gold standard information. So they could miss something that otherwise would be in the data. "
September's CPI report was already released on a delay; it was initially scheduled for October 15, but the ongoing government shutdown meant the Bureau of Labor Statistics hadn't been able to perform all of its operations. BLS said in Friday's release that "September CPI data collection was completed before the lapse in appropriations."
The report showed that CPI rose 3% over the year, the same rate as the start of the year and just short of the 3.1% forecast.
On October 10, the BLS said it had rescheduled the report for October 24, in part so that it could provide necessary data for the annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustment. The agency hasn't rescheduled other data releases that were missed during the shutdown, including the jobs report, another key economic indicator.
When reached for comment, the White House reiterated Leavitt's remarks.
