(NewsNation) — The White House says there likely won’t be an inflation report released next month due to the ongoing government shutdown.
The funding lapse is preventing surveyors from deploying to the field, which is “depriving us of critical data,” the White House wrote on X. Officials said it would mark the “first time in history” that the information isn’t released, warning the economic fallout “could be devastating.”
September’s inflation report was published nine days behind schedule on Friday, despite the shutdown, but that was an exception because the data was needed to calculate the Social Security cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA).
Friday’s release showed consumer prices rose 3% in September from a year earlier — the fastest annual pace since January but slightly below the 3.1% increase forecasters expected. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.3%, easing from August’s 0.4% gain.
That data gives the Federal Reserve a clearer picture heading into next week’s interest rate meeting. Until now, policymakers have been starved of official economic data during the shutdown.
If next month’s inflation figures aren’t released, it will be even harder for economists to gauge what’s happening in the U.S. economy — at a time when there’s no obvious path forward.
“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,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Now in its 24th day, the shutdown is officially the second-longest in U.S. history — and there are few signs of it ending soon.
