The report said the biggest increase was due to higher gasoline prices.
Published October 24, 2025
U.S. consumer prices rose less than expected in September as inflationary pressures continued to weigh on the domestic economy.
Prices rose 0.3% in September from the previous month, slowing from a 0.4% rise in August, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Recommended stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
Compared to the same period last year, CPI increased by 3%. Last month’s report showed an increase of 2.9%.
Gasoline prices led the rise, rising 4.1% on a monthly basis. Overall, the energy index rose by 1.5% over the same period. On a monthly basis, food prices rose 0.2% in September after rising 0.5% in August.
Prices of goods and services other than food and energy, such as housing, airfare, household goods and clothing, rose 0.2% month-on-month in September, following a 0.3% increase in August.
The release of the statistics comes ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve meeting, where the central bank is expected to cut its benchmark interest rate by another 25 basis points to between 3.75% and 4%.
“New consumer price index data released today shows an economy where prices continue to rise faster than the Federal Reserve recommends,” Heather Boushey, a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Project on Rethinking the Economy, said in a comment to Al Jazeera.
But the central bank is gauging interest rates with limited data, largely because the government shutdown has caused an economic data blackout, with more than half of U.S. economic data unavailable.
The CPI report was an exception. It is being used to help the U.S. Social Security Administration calculate cost-of-living adjustments, which were originally due Oct. 15. After releasing the CPI data on Friday, the Social Security Administration announced that beneficiaries will see their monthly payments increase by 2.8% in 2026.
Much of the data released was collected before the government shutdown. But that also means data for the November report has not been collected, posing a challenge for economists in the coming months as the Bureau of Labor Statistics already faces budget and staffing constraints.
“The Trump administration’s lack of consistent economic policy threatens to turn the economy upside down,” Boushey said.
The White House has announced that it will not release inflation data next month due to the government shutdown.
“We cannot send investigators to the scene. Critical data will be taken away,” the White House said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
The US market is on an upward trend. As of 11 a.m. GMT in New York, the Nasdaq was up just over 1%, the S&P 500 was up 0.7% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up almost 0.9%.
