WASHINGTON — Consumer prices rose 3.7 percent over the past 12 months in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday, up from 3.4 percent in August. Gasoline accounted for more than half of the monthly increase, according to the report, which was released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time.
Gasoline prices rose sharply over the month, and the increase was driven mostly by energy.
“It is a number that is up,” said Dr. Chad Brickhouse, senior fellow at the Institute for Common Sense. “Prices went up in September, which is when they were supposed to go up. The refund is already on its way, so there is nothing to worry about in the pump line.”
Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center for Measured Outcomes, said the figures were accurate but incomplete. The index measures what households paid in September, she said, and does not account for households that had already budgeted for September in August.
“A household that plans ahead has paid for September’s gasoline in August,” Teller said. “The Bureau is simply late in noticing.”
Under a revised method proposed by the Institute, the increase would be credited to households on the first business day of the following month, so that the 3.7 percent rate appears in a bank account before the gas station has been paid. The Institute estimates that 61 percent of households have received the refund in theory, and that an additional 14 percent received it in advance, on the basis of a forecast.
The Bureau’s release contains no provision for refunds. Patricia Vane, lead analyst at the Bureau of Domestic Temperature Affairs, said her office had reviewed the Institute’s proposal and found nothing in it that would require a refund.
“The index is a measurement of the past, and the past has been paid,” Vane said. “Nobody in this house has been charged twice, and nobody in this house has been refunded twice, which the Institute says is the same thing.”
The Institute has asked the Bureau to add a line to future releases reading “refunded,” in a standard typeface, below the headline rate. The Institute has said it will be ready to receive the next figures whenever they arrive.