Job growth is slowing, unemployment is rising, and affordability pressures persist heading into the critical holiday season. Economic resilience is at risk.

As this report goes to press, 14 of the 24 components of the Business Conditions Monthly lack published data beginning in September or October 2025. Where updates have occurred, releases are often incomplete and may reflect imputation or other estimation methods rather than finalized observations. Based on current agency release estimates, the earliest realistic timeframe for fully restoring the BCM is early 2026, once a complete and continuous post-shutdown data set becomes available.

Discussion, November — December 2025Discussion, November — December 2025

Recent inflation data from both the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) deflator point to a broad deceleration in price pressures, even as measurement issues complicate interpretation. Averaged across October and November, headline CPI rose just 0.10 percent per month and core CPI only 0.08 percent, pulling year-over-year inflation down to 2.7 percent and core inflation to 2.6 percent by November. Price declines were widespread across tariff-exposed goods (apparel, electronics, toys, and recreational items) suggesting that earlier tariff pass-through is fading and that discounting tied to holiday promotions is now dominant. Food inflation slowed sharply, with grocery prices falling modestly and egg prices dropping by double digits over two months. Core services inflation also eased markedly, led by slower shelter costs and outright declines in discretionary categories such as hotels, airfares, and recreation, consistent with softer consumer demand around the government shutdown. On a three-month annualized basis, more than half of the CPI basket is now running below the Federal Reserve’s two-percent target, indicating that inflation momentum is waning even beyond a few volatile categories.

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