Aftermath of the U.S. Government Shutdown: October PPI and CPI Data Delayed, Market and Federal Reserve in Decision-Making Blind Spot
On December 9, it was reported that due to the previous funding interruption of the U.S. government leading to departmental shutdowns, the latest schedule released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the Producer Price Index (PPI) report for October 2025 will not be released as originally planned.
According to the latest arrangement, the October data will be postponed to January 14, 2026, and will be released together with the delayed PPI report for November 2025.
The impact of this data absence is extremely far-reaching. The PPI is a key indicator for measuring upstream wholesale price pressures and is also an important reference data for the Federal Reserve's assessment of inflation trends, especially providing crucial insights for its core focus on the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE).
In addition, on the eve of the critical Federal Reserve interest rate meeting on December 10, the absence of this key data has directly resulted in a huge gap in the inflation observation window for a month.
More seriously, unlike the PPI, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data was also severely affected by the shutdown in October and could not be released, further exacerbating the blind spot in inflation monitoring.
This also means that both the market and policymakers lack an entire month of official consumer and producer price data as a basis for judging the overall inflation path.
Overall, facing this series of data vacuums, the Federal Reserve will be forced to rely more on other indirect indicators and market surveys when formulating future monetary policy, which undoubtedly greatly increases the uncertainty and difficulty of decision-making and forecasting.
