NY Fed President Williams says some 'technical factors' distorted November's CPI reading downward

New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said Friday that “technical factors” likely distorted November’s inflation data, pushing the headline reading lower than it otherwise would have been.

“There were some special factors of practical factors that really are related to the fact that they weren’t able to collect date in October and not in the first half of November. And because of that, I think the data were distorted in some of the categories, and that pushed down the CPI reading, probably by a tenth or so,” Williams said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

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Because the October CPI release was canceled, Thursday’s report lacked several of the standard data points typically included in a CPI report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said it could not go back and collect October survey data, though it relied on “nonsurvey data sources” to construct the index.

As a result, economists may be cautious about interpreting the report as clear evidence that inflation is on a sustained downward path, given the absence of an October comparison. Economists believe some some inputs to the owners’ equivalent rent calculation for the canceled October month were estimated by the BLS to have zero inflation, distorting that calculation downward.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/19/ny-fed-president-williams-says-some-technical-factors-distorted-novembers-cpi-reading-downward.html