Trump administration set to release key September inflation data despite government shutdown

Consumer price growth picked up slightly in September but fell short of forecasts, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, a result likely to reinforce households financial concerns but may ease some fears about inflation pressures in the U.S. economy.

Inflation hit 0.3% in September, while the annual rate landed at 3.0%, the agency said.

The agency’s report comes despite the government shutdown that has paralyzed federal reporting and has no end in sight. It marks the first time a major economic report has been issued by the government since the shutdown began Oct. 1.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones and Bloomberg had expected the overall annual inflation rate to have climbed rise to 3.1% for the 12 months ending in September.

Workers’ earnings have also continued to climb along with prices, hitting a new post-pandemic high in the second quarter of this year.

But for consumers, higher wages on paper do not appear to have eased the sting of rising prices, according to several recent surveys.

Prices and inflation edged out tariffs to become consumers’ most reported concerns in the Conference Board research group’s September survey. The University of Michigan’s closely watched surveys found overall consumer sentiment in October was down 22% from the same month a year ago.

On Wall Street and Main Street, the Trump administration’s global trade and tariffs policy continues to loom large.

“We continue to expect tariffs to remain a source of goods price inflation over the next few quarters,” economists with Bank of America wrote in a client note earlier this week. They also predicted that a decline in the prices of used cars would dent the overall pace of inflation that shows up in Friday’s report.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote that they expect “an acceleration in headline inflation, largely driven by higher seasonally adjusted gasoline prices.” They also anticipate that “food inflation will remain elevated,” according to a client note.

Many analysts expected it to have an outsized impact on U.S. markets because it lands in the middle of a weekslong blackout on government economic data.

It also arrives less than a week before the Fed’s policy meeting Oct. 28-29. There, committee members will discuss whether to lower interest rates again, which they are widely expected to do. The latest index data will help to inform the Fed’s assessment of the U.S. economy.

It will also prove a key factor in determining the Social Security Administration’s annual cost-of-living adjustment for 2026, known as the COLA. Inflation data from July, August and September specifically are used as benchmarks to help set the COLA for the coming year.

Like the index data, the Social Security Administration had initially planned to release the 2026 COLA in mid-October, but it was delayed by the government shutdown.