U.S. Government Shutdown Suspends CPI Data Collection for First Time in Over a Century

The U.S. government shutdown has halted Consumer Price Index data collection for the first time in more than 100 years, with Bureau of Labor Statistics staff furloughed. Markets now operate without official inflation measurements, while September's CPI stood at 3.0%. The disruption has created conflicting fallback mechanisms, with the Treasury and International Swaps and Derivatives Association using divergent methodologies that have distorted breakeven rates between Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities and inflation swaps.