Chao Deng

Even before this report came out, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell was warning that

there could be potential distortions and really playing down the data.

Well, there was a government shutdown that lasted to mid-November that prevented the Labor Department from collecting

some of the data that they normally would have to compile the report.

So even going into today's release, economists were warning that some of the technical workarounds the agency had to use meant that the November figure might be biased a bit downwards.

Because the Labor Bureau wasn't able to collect data in October,

Economists think that they made this assumption that housing costs didn't move much that month.

And because the housing component composes a big part of the headline inflation, that workaround could have put downward pressure on the headline inflation reading.

And then because the government shutdown lasted through November 12th, at that point, when the labor statistics officials came back to survey data, it was right around Black Friday and Thanksgiving where you traditionally see a lot of holiday discounting.

And so, again, some of the numbers collected could have been distorted by that.

The Federal Reserve will have December inflation numbers before it meets next time to talk about interest rates.

So in some ways, it's going to be waiting for that.

Even before this report came out, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell was warning that there could be potential distortions and really playing down the data.