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Tame inflation report keeps Fed rate cut on track

The CPI release offers a small reprieve for the Fed, which has been deprived of key economic data while much of the government is not operating. 

By Victoria Guida

The annual inflation rate ticked up to 3 percent in September but didn’t increase by as much as expected, leaving the Federal Reserve on track to cut interest rates again next week.

Prices rose 0.3 percent from August, according to the Labor Department’s latest consumer price index report, which drew more attention than usual because it was delayed by the government shutdown.

The report is also crucial because increases in Social Security benefits are tied to the inflation rate. After the CPI release, the Social Security Administration announced that benefits would rise 2.8 percent in 2026 in the annual cost-of-living adjustment.

Fed policymakers will decide next Wednesday whether to reduce interest rates again. Chair Jerome Powell has been under constant pressure from President Donald Trump to lower borrowing costs to spur the economy.

“There was little in today’s benign CPI report to ‘spook’ the Fed and we continue to expect further easing at next week’s Fed meeting,” Lindsay Rosner, head of multi-sector fixed income investing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, said in an emailed statement.

“A December rate cut also remains likely with the current data drought providing the Fed with little reason to deviate from the path set out” in policymakers’ September projections, she added.

The CPI report offers a small reprieve for the Fed, which has been deprived of key economic data while much of the government is not operating. Staff at the Bureau of Labor Statistics was brought back to produce this report as the Trump administration aims to meet the statutory deadline for making inflation-related adjustments to Social Security benefits.

But the agency isn’t yet collecting data for the next CPI, which means the October report will also be delayed, and it’s unclear for how long. Meanwhile, the monthly jobs report is also indefinitely on hold.

The Fed still has recent data and some private-sector supplements to help guide it for now, but Powell said last week that it would become more challenging for central bank policymakers the longer the data blackout lasts.

“I would say after Thanksgiving you probably want to have that,” JPMorgan chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli said in an interview. “Fed officials kind of have a sense of the message that they want to give to the market about December. And so if you go past November, I think then they’re going to have some issues in terms of how they’re talking about policy to the market.”