November 13th was supposed to be the day the October inflation report was to be released, telling us whether our cost of living is going up or holding steady.  This would have been an especially interesting report, since A) inflation has been on the rise lately, and B) the Federal Reserve Board cut interest rates by 0.25%.

The 43-day government shutdown sent all of the Labor Department researchers and statisticians back to their living rooms, which means there will be a one-month (slated to be released with November’s numbers) gap in the consumer price index data.  The best estimate, from the Cleveland Fed office, is that prices are rising at a rate of 3% a year—down from an alarming 9.1% in June 2022, but up from 2.3% last April.  

We will also miss a month of unemployment data, which has been of greater concern to economists, due to reported sluggish hiring and uncertainty about the number of jobs that are being superseded by artificial intelligence.  

The Congressional Budget Office, which seems to have been staffed during the shutdown, added up all the cancelled flights and deferred purchases by government workers not receiving paychecks and the lost income of government contractors—and recently reported that the economy permanently lost $11 billion of activity over the 43-day government hiatus.  

Historically, the American economy has sailed through these shutdowns without too much damage, and that could be the case here.  But we are going to have to wait a while to see this reflected (or not) in the economic figures that are currently missing in action.

This article was written by an independent writer for Brewster Financial Planning LLC and is not intended as individualized legal or investment advice.