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Core vs Headline Inflation: Why the Two Numbers Diverge (September 2026)

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The two numbers on your screen, answered first In September 2026, U.S. consumer prices rose 3.7% from a year earlier. Core prices, which leave out food and energy, rose 2.6% . Believe both numbers — but use them for different jobs. The 3.7% is what American households actually paid. The 2.6% is the best read of where inflation is headed. Almost the entire gap between them is one thing: gasoline, up 34.2% from a year earlier. All figures in this post come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Consumer Price Index release for September 2026 (USDL-26-1574, published October 14, 2026), unless noted otherwise. What each number actually measures Headline inflation is the change in the full Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U): the whole basket — groceries, gasoline, rent, haircuts, car insurance, all of it, weighted by how much households actually spend on each category. Core inflation is the same basket with two categories removed: food and energy. Its official n...
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How to Read a Jobs Report Like an Economist

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Every month, one jobs report produces a dozen different headlines. The way to cut through them is to read five things together: payroll growth against its recent trend, the unemployment rate, revisions to earlier months, which industries actually moved, and what happened to wages, hours, and participation. The September 2026 report is a good practice case: employers added 29,000 jobs, the unemployment rate sat at 4.2%, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) described both as having "changed little." The headline alone says almost nothing. The details say much more. All figures below come from the BLS Employment Situation release for September 2026 (USDL-26-1549), published October 2, 2026, and are seasonally adjusted. Two surveys, one release The jobs report is really two surveys published together. The household survey asks people about their work status and produces the unemployment rate. The establishment survey asks employers about payrolls and produces the nonfarm payr...
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What Americans Actually Paid This Week: Gas, Mortgages, Eggs (Week Ending Oct 29, 2026)

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Three numbers describe what American households actually paid this week. Regular gasoline averaged $4.269 a gallon in the week ending October 26. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate came in at 7.24% for the week ending October 29 — the lowest reading this month. A dozen Grade A large eggs cost $2.27 , the September monthly average and the most recent figure the Bureau of Labor Statistics has published. Below is what each number means in plain dollars, and — honestly — what a single week of numbers does not. The Three Numbers Regular gasoline: $4.269 per gallon. This is the national average from the U.S. Energy Information Administration's weekly retail survey, for the week ending October 26 and published October 27. It fell 1.5 cents from $4.284 the week before, sits about 20 cents below the late-September level of $4.47, and is roughly $1.23 higher than a year ago ($3.035). The national figure hides sharp regional differences: the Gulf Coast was the cheapest region at $...
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Yield Curve Signals in 2026: Reading the Curve After the Longest Inversion on Record

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The U.S. Treasury yield curve spent about 26 months inverted — the longest stretch in modern history — then flipped back to normal in September 2024. No recession has been dated since. Reading that upward slope as an all-clear gets history backwards: recessions have typically begun after the curve turned positive again, not while it was inverted. As of October 29, 2026, the 10-year Treasury yielded 4.98% against 4.61% for the 2-year note — a spread of +37 basis points, comfortably positive. The slope alone is not the story now. What matters is how the curve got here, which end of the curve is moving, and what would actually change the read. The numbers right now, verified All figures below are from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis FRED database, daily Treasury constant-maturity yields (the same data the Treasury publishes in its H.15 release), as of October 29, 2026: 10-year yield: 4.98% 2-year yield: 4.61% 3-month bill: 4.18% 10-year minus 2-year spread: +0.37 perc...
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