AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Well, much of the federal government has stalled, but concerns about inflation have not. Today, we got some crucial data from the federal government on where things stand. Prices rose slightly, but the big news was for Social Security recipients, who finally got an update on the payments that they will be getting next year. NPR financial correspondent Maria Aspan has been covering this and joins us now. Hi, Maria.
MARIA ASPAN, BYLINE: Hey there, Ailsa.
CHANG: Hey. OK, so what does today's inflation report tell us about the overall economy?
ASPAN: I can best describe it as aggressively meh.
CHANG: (Laughter) Meh - OK.
ASPAN: Prices rose 3% in September from a year earlier, which was slightly less than what economists expected, but inflation is still higher than the Federal Reserve wants. I talked about this with Wells Fargo economist Nicole Cervi. She is also not exactly wowed.
NICOLE CERVI: This was probably the most anticipated CPI report I can remember of these past few months, just because we're operating in this data vacuum with no major government releases coming out. And so it was highly anticipated on our end, and we came in and it was a little bit of a damp squib.
CHANG: (Laughter) A damp squib - nice. OK.
(LAUGHTER)
ASPAN: So as she points out, the shutdown means the government isn't publishing most important economic data, like the jobs report. So this was a big exception.
CHANG: Wait, why do you think the federal government made this exception?
ASPAN: Well, it was nine days late, but the fact that it was published at all was for a couple of reasons. First, the Bureau of Labor Statistics had already collected the data before the government shutdown. It just needed to crunch the numbers and then publish the report. So the government recalled some furloughed BLS staffers to do just that because the government also needs the September inflation data to finish calculating the annual Social Security cost-of-living increase. That determines the size of the checks for the 75 million people who receive Social Security benefits.
CHANG: OK. Very important information for them - so what did the Social Security Administration say?
ASPAN: It announced a 2.8% cost-of-living increase. That works out to about $56 per month on average for people receiving Social Security...
CHANG: OK.
ASPAN: ...Starting in January.
CHANG: Not bad. How are retirees reacting to that increase?
ASPAN: Well, it is a slightly bigger increase than last year, but senior citizens and their advocates say it's not enough. I talked this morning to Jim Pedersen. He's a 66-year-old retired auto worker in Michigan, and he's also the state president for the Alliance for Retired Americans.
JIM PEDERSEN: My first reaction is, well, that's nice. That's better than nothing, and it's something. But I'm also aware that the prices of certain things that seniors depend on is going up faster than the regular inflation.
ASPAN: He pointed out that health insurance costs in particular are soaring. And seniors tend to need more health care and prescriptions than younger Americans.
CHANG: Those are all fair points. OK, so what else did we learn from this data release today?
ASPAN: The big question was, what does it tell the Federal Reserve? The Fed needs a lot of the economic data we're just not getting because it's weighing whether to cut interest rates again next week. Now, most economists do still expect the Fed to lower interest rates, and most investors do, too. But as long as the shutdown continues, they're increasingly flying blind. There's no jobs report this month so far, and there might never be an inflation report about what's going on right now.
CHANG: That is NPR's Maria Aspan. Thank you, Maria.
ASPAN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
