October CPI Will Skip the Annual Inflation Rate, BLS Says

Tuesday's consumer price report will arrive without its best-known number. The Bureau of Labor Statistics won't publish 12-month changes for most October CPI series, including headline and core, when the report comes out at 8:30 a.m. ET, the agency says.

That annual rate is the figure most people mean by inflation. In September it was 3.7%, up from 3.4% in August, with core prices (everything but food and energy) up 2.6%, per the September CPI release.

Why the number is missing

The CPI tracks what a fixed basket of goods and services costs each month and turns it into an index. The 12-month change compares this October's index with last October's. There is no last October. During the 2025 government shutdown, which ran Oct. 1 to Nov. 12, BLS stopped collecting prices, carried September's forward to fill the gap and never published most October 2025 indexes.

BLS laid out the plan in a shutdown FAQ last updated Sept. 16. Bloomberg reported Monday that the October report would leave out both annual figures, Quartz said.

Monthly figures still come out

Economists in the Dow Jones survey expect prices rose 0.3% in October and core 0.2%, CNBC reported. September's gains were 0.6% and 0.3%. Energy prices were up 20.4% over the year to September, and gasoline alone made up more than half of September's monthly rise, BLS said.

Fed officials are already talking about prices. "We've got to come to terms with this cost-side and inflation-side failure," Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said Monday, per CNBC.

Bitcoin traded near $75,190 at 5:55 p.m. ET, up 1.1% over 24 hours, per CoinGecko.

Any October annual rate quoted Tuesday will be someone else's calculation, not a BLS figure. The November report is scheduled for Dec. 10.