August CPI Report: Friday, September 11 at 8:30am ET, Five Days Before the Fed Decides

TL;DR

• The August Consumer Price Index is released Friday, September 11, 2026 at 8:30am ET, per the BLS schedule.
• It is the last inflation print before the September 15-16 Fed meeting, landing five days ahead of the decision, with a hike priced near one in three.
• The bar it inherits: July printed 3.4% headline and 2.5% core, every number dead on consensus. An in-line print settled nothing, which is exactly why August carries the tiebreak.
• August PPI arrives the day before, Thursday, September 10 at 8:30am ET, so the market walks into Friday with the producer-side read already in hand.
• No consensus forecast for August exists yet. Estimates firm up in the week before the release; this page gets updated when they do, and again with the result.

When Is the Next CPI Report?

Friday, September 11 at 8:30am ET, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, covering August prices. The dates for every scheduled print after it are on the economic calendar, alongside what the S&P 500 did on the last two years of CPI mornings.

The Fed's September decision comes the following Wednesday, so this is the final inflation reading the committee sees before it votes. Nothing else of consequence sits between the two: the release calendar is empty from Friday morning to Wednesday afternoon.

The Bar: A July That Settled Nothing

July CPI came in at +0.1% on the month and 3.4% on the year, with core at +0.2% and 2.5%. All four numbers matched consensus, and hike pricing barely moved on the day. Underneath, energy fell 1.5% in July but remains up 14.7% over twelve months, the residue of the spring oil shock, while shelter's slow cooling did most of core's work.

That leaves August with an unusually clean setup: 3.4% against a 2% target is the inflation half of the mandate, a negative July payrolls print is the labour half, and the committee that has to weigh them produced three dissents in favour of a hike at its last meeting. A print at or below 3.4% likely buries the September hike for good. A re-acceleration toward 3.6% or higher puts a live vote back on the table five days before it happens.

The Board

The last inflation print before the Fed votes, with nothing on the calendar between them.

What Lands Around It

The September run-in is dense, and each entry reprices the same decision:

• Friday, September 4: the August jobs report at 8:30am ET. July fell 23,000; a second negative print would make a hike very hard to deliver whatever CPI says.
• Thursday, September 10: August PPI at 8:30am ET. July's PPI was flat overall, but its portfolio-management line is the component that feeds PCE and that CPI never sees.
• Friday, September 11: August CPI, this page.
• Wednesday, September 16: the Fed decision at 2:00pm ET, with a new dot plot attached.

My read is unchanged from the July print: the jobs report and this CPI are the only two entries that can actually move the vote. The rest is commentary the committee has already heard.

The One-Line Read

August CPI lands September 11 at 8:30am ET, five days before the Fed decides: July's dead-on 3.4% left the hike question standing, so this is the print that answers it.