White House says there likely won’t be an inflation report next month

The new inflation report will likely be the last for some time — and it could leave markets and Americans in the dark about how much prices have risen.

“Democrats choosing to keep the government closed likely won’t deliver an inflation report in October, leaving businesses, markets, families and the Federal Reserve in disarray,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. said the following the release of the September Consumer Price Index report on Friday morning.

That would make the consumer price index yet another casualty of the current government shutdown, which has left thousands of federal workers working without pay or unemployment since Oct. 1, and federal agencies — like the Bureau of Labor Statistics — operating with reduced crews.

The CPI report relies largely on the ongoing data collection that the BLS typically conducts, sending federal workers check around 80,000 prices per month at businesses across the country to measure how much everything from apartment rent to coffee to sewing machines costs. These workers all remain idle as the shutdown continues, hampering the Bureau’s ability to report these price changes.

“All active data collection activities are suspended during the government shutdown,” a BLS spokesperson said. “Once funding is restored, the BLS will resume normal operations and will notify the public of any changes to the BLS release schedule for press releases.”

The September CPI report has already been published late; it was originally scheduled for October 15, but the current government shutdown has prevented the Bureau of Labor Statistics from carrying out all of its operations. The BLS said in its Friday release that “collection of September CPI data was completed before the appropriations expired.”

The report shows that the CPI rose 3% for the year, the same rate as at the start of the year and just below the 3.1% forecast.

On October 10, the BLS announced that it had delayed the release of the report until October 24, in part so that it could provide the data needed for Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment. The agency has not 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.

This is a developing story. Please check again for updates.