BLS Recalls Staff to Ready September CPI Report by Month’s End

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has recalled staff to prepare a key inflation report that is necessary to calculate the size of next year’s Social Security checks, according to a Labor Department official with knowledge of the matter.

The agency was directed by the White House Office of Management and Budget to bring back employees to assemble the September consumer price index report in time for publication by the end of the month, the official said. The data was originally scheduled to be released Oct. 15.

The Labor Department — which oversees BLS — as well as OMB and the White House didn’t respond to requests for comment. Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano declined to comment.

The BLS had suspended all operations, including data collection and the production of economic statistics, as a result of the government shutdown. In its latest contingency plan, the Labor Department said scheduled BLS releases wouldn’t come out during a shutdown, nor would the agency’s website be updated. Out of the BLS’s roughly 2,000 employees, the plan only prescribed the commissioner to work during a lapse in funding.

The Social Security Administration uses third-quarter CPI data to determine the annual cost-of-living adjustment for recipients for the following year. The COLA announcement is typically made shortly after the BLS releases the September CPI.

The Labor Department plan said that a delay of the CPI report released in October “might have an impact” on the COLA announcement.

CPI Report

The BLS collects prices for the CPI throughout the entire reference month, meaning all data collection would have been complete by the time the government shut down after Sept. 30. From there, economists analyze the data — which includes roughly 80,000 price quotes from various retail and services locations from around the country — and weight by importance for spending patterns within a particular population.

Once the data is collected, it usually takes about eight to 10 business days to produce the report. Dozens of economists and IT specialists are typically involved in preparing and disseminating it. Given that timeline, it is unlikely the report will be released by its original publication date of Oct. 15.

However, it may come out in time for the Federal Reserve’s Oct. 28-29 policy meeting. Investors expect officials to cut interest rates again, but several policymakers have expressed hesitancy in doing so given inflation is still running well above their target.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller said in an interview Friday that having the CPI report for that meeting will help “a lot.” However, he’s more concerned about the labor market, and the BLS still hasn’t released the September employment report that was due Oct. 3.

The last government shutdown to affect the release of the CPI and other BLS data was in 2013. That lapse suspended BLS activity from Oct. 1 through Oct. 16, and pushed the release of the CPI back to Oct. 30, two weeks later than originally planned.

(Updates with comments from Fed’s Waller)

--With assistance from Gregory Korte and Catherine Lucey.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Molly Smith in New York at msmith604@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Kate Davidson at kdavidson60@bloomberg.net

Reade Pickert

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