Nov. 21 (UPI) — The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday it won’t deliver the October Consumer Price Index report, meaning the Federal Reserve won’t get the important data before it meets again Dec. 10 to decide on interest rates.
October’s CPI report was scheduled to come out on Nov. 7, but was canceled because of the government shutdown. The November report was scheduled for Dec. 10, but that’s been changed to Dec. 18, which will be too late for the Fed.
The BLS gathers information via visits, phone calls and surveys, which would have made it impossible during the shutdown and very difficult to get information retroactively.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis also said the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index “is to be rescheduled,” though no firm date has been announced, CNBC reported. That report is the main inflation forecasting tool that the Fed uses.
Minutes from the Fed’s October meeting show that the officials disagreed on whether to lower interest rates at the December meeting after it approved back-to-back reductions.
Each of the last two meetings ended with them lowering the rate by .25% to a now-3.7% to 4%.
“This is a temporary state of affairs. And we’re going to do our jobs, we’re going to collect every scrap of data we can find, evaluate it, and think carefully about it,” CNBC reported Fed Chair Jerome Powell said after the October meeting.
“What do you do if you’re driving in the fog? You slow down. … There’s a possibility that it would make sense to be more cautious about moving.”
New York Fed President John Williams said Friday he thinks the central bank probably has “room for a further adjustment in the near term,” implying a potential cut.