Blame last fall’s federal government shutdown, which forced the Bureau of Labor Statistics to stop collecting price data for more than a month. As a result, the agency never released a price index for last October and can’t calculate a year-over-year change for today’s report.

(The agency was able to collect data for a few products retroactively, and will be able to publish year-over-year changes for those items.)

Many economists will estimate the 12-month change by taking an average of the September and November price levels and comparing the latest data to that. The New York Times will do the same in our coverage. (To be precise, we will be estimating the October 2025 price level by taking the geometric mean of the September and November numbers.)

That approach may slightly overstate inflation over the past year. The C.P.I. for last November was artificially depressed because of quirks in the way government statisticians accounted for the missing data from the prior month. That will make the change in prices between this fall and last look larger than it otherwise would be.

The uncertainty about the 12-month figure probably won’t matter much to officials at the Federal Reserve, who tend to focus on shorter-run changes for hints about where inflation is headed. And none of the methodological oddities will change the big picture, which is that inflation remains uncomfortably high.

Voters overwhelmingly supported ballot initiatives that aimed to rein in data center development, and they elected to office governors and legislators who promised to do the same.

Now the question for newly empowered Democrats, and for policymakers more broadly, is whether they can find a way to address voters’ concerns without derailing the economy.

Many economists are optimistic, arguing that slowing the frenetic pace of the A.I. build out could make it more sustainable, even if it causes some short-term hardship. Some of the A.I. skeptics who won office last week, including Gina Hinojosa, the newly elected Democratic governor of Texas, have said they want to ensure data center projects benefit their communities, not stop them entirely.

But the whipsawing of financial markets in the days after the 2026 election shows just how narrow a tightrope that is to walk. The mere suggestion of scrutiny in Washington has rattled both Silicon Valley and Wall Street, which enjoyed two years of lax regulation under Republicans’ watch.

That tension was evident again on Monday, when Nvidia, the chipmaker at the center of the A.I. ecosystem, descended into a maelstrom over its chief executive’s relationship with a woman whom U.S. intelligence agencies believe to be a Chinese spy. President Trump came to his defense, some in Congress have called for investigations and Nvidia’s share price fell sharply Monday morning.

The incident offered fresh evidence that the economy has become so dependent on A.I., and so much money has flooded into the sector, that deflating the bubble without popping it could prove difficult. Investors have made their bets on the assumption that the sector’s breakneck growth rate would continue for years, meaning that the market could be vulnerable if the pace slows even modestly.

“It’s not like you can scientifically calibrate this dial,” said Jared Bernstein, who served as a top economic adviser to President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “The likelihood that things deflate in some sort of orderly way are low.”

Powering Growth, Pushing Up Prices

The challenge for Democrats is that A.I. — and the building boom that developing it requires — has become embedded into nearly every aspect of the U.S. economy.

Investors have pumped hundreds of billions of dollars of capital into companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, which have spent that money on microchips, data centers and the electricity to power them. The investments have filtered through the economy, lifting demand for steel, construction equipment and even the specialized gray paint used to coat the walls of data centers.

At the same time, the rising share prices of A.I.-related companies have helped swell Americans’ brokerage accounts and retirement portfolios, helping to prop up consumer spending when rising prices and slowing wage growth are taking a toll on many people’s finances.

Suppliers to the data centers have continued to add jobs even as the rest of the manufacturing industry has cut workers, according to an analysis by Devesh Kodnani, a fellow at the Economic Security Project, a progressive research organization. The story is similar in construction, where data center projects have helped make up for soft demand in housing, warehouses and office buildings.

But while the boom has helped keep growth on track, it has also soaked up resources from other sectors. Companies found themselves forced to pay more for materials and labor. Shortages of memory chips led to higher prices for consumer electronics. The A.I. industry’s demand for power drove up electricity prices, while its demand for capital pushed up interest rates.

“It’s almost as if corporate America has been so obsessed with this technology investment that it’s chosen to do so at the expense of other aspects of the economy,” said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING, an investment bank.

That sense of corporate impunity helps explain public opposition to data centers, and to A.I. more generally, said Asad Ramzanali, director of A.I. and technology policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, a research institute at Vanderbilt University.

Communities experience the costs of A.I. as noise, traffic and higher electricity bills, and even people who live nowhere near data centers worry about the effects that A.I. could have on their jobs, the climate or even the future of the human race. The benefits, on the other hand, seem mostly to be flowing to a relative handful of tech billionaires.

“They see all the costs, they feel all the cost, they bear all the cost, and the benefits are not accruing in a meaningful way,” Mr. Ramzanali said.

Policy Choices

President Trump and his aides have shrugged off such criticisms, celebrating the potential riches to come from A.I. and the data centers that power the technology. The administration has also worked to ward off anything that might inhibit the development of those computing facilities — and their contribution to the economy’s growth.

“As President, I am 100 percent in favor of Super Intelligence (SI), and will work with the many States in the U.S. that want to become RICH by having them,” Mr. Trump said on social media, referring to data centers. “They are GOLD, and only foolish leadership will say ‘NO’ to the riches they bring!”

Within days of the midterm election, some Democrats quickly pledged that they would use their newfound political strength to regulate A.I. and curtail data center construction.

“One of the reasons the American people rose up against A.I. data centers is that they saw the A.I. industry was running wild, and the Trump administration was encouraging the A.I. industry to run wild,” said Representative Ted Lieu of California, a chair of a Democratic commission established in 2025 to study A.I.’s economic implications.

Mr. Lieu offered a roster of policy areas the new Democratic majority expected to explore: the national security issues posed by sales of advanced chips, the effects chatbots could have on children and the worker protections required if A.I. replaces human labor. But he rejected the notion that those guardrails would pose a threat to economic growth.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, pointed to the nearly four dozen moratoria on data center development across the country. Taking aim at what he called “Big Tech oligarchs,” he added on social media: “NATIONAL DATA CENTER MORATORIUM NOW.”

But even as Democrats have warned about the pitfalls of A.I., many of the party’s newly elected leaders have said they are looking to impose limits on the industry, not shut it down.

In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, Ms. Hinojosa, the Texas governor-elect, said she would delay permits for data centers “until we can protect Texans” but maintained her state’s pro-business reputation.

“These newly elected officials presumably don’t want to lose that much economic activity,” said Mr. Bernstein, the former Biden administration adviser. “It’s kind of the whole game now.”

Financial Risks

Such dependence on one sector is risky, many economists say, and some moderation in the pace of the A.I. build out would be welcomed.

Policymakers at the Federal Reserve have become concerned that the building boom is contributing to inflation, and that until recently it seemed immune to the central bank’s usual tool for controlling price pressures: higher interest rates. If Democrats rein in A.I.’s growth, that could lessen the need for more aggressive rate hikes.

Limits on data center construction could also impose some discipline on an industry that has been building so quickly, and spending so much, that economists were becoming skeptical all the bets would pay off. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, an economist at Columbia University, estimated in a recent paper that the A.I. build out was on track to become the largest infrastructure investment in U.S. history, surpassing episodes like the railroad construction boom of the 19th century, most of which ended in catastrophic busts.

New regulations would probably “take some of the wind out of the sails of that whole sector,” Mr. Van Nieuwerburgh said. “But I think it’s not a bad thing. The silver lining could be that a bit slower build-out might actually give us more time to assess whether we need all of it.”

But while letting the air out of a bubble is appealing in theory, history suggests it is difficult to do. Even before the election, there were signs that investors were becoming concerned that some of their A.I. bets would not pay off. If the threat of regulation causes a more widespread deterioration in investor sentiment, that could lead to a sharper decline in stock prices. That could cause wealthier households to pull back spending, potentially causing a recession.

The real risk is that a bursting of the A.I. bubble reveals vulnerabilities in the financial system that economists and policymakers were not aware of. That is what happened in 2008, when a crisis that had seemed contained to subprime mortgages nearly brought down the entire global economy.

“I think the concerning version is where there are some hidden exposures in the financial system that we don’t really know about,” said Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, an economist at Harvard.

The best way to prevent that outcome, Mr. Chodorow-Reich said, would be through careful regulation and scrutiny by the Treasury Department and the Fed.

Reining in the boom through a patchwork of local regulations “is a very second-best or third-best or maybe fifth-best way to do this,” he said, “but it could help.”

Behind those drops is an oil market that has quietly reached a new equilibrium, as global supply finally caught back up with demand. Beginning in September, the world was — for the first time since the start of the war — pumping more oil than it was using, according to analysts at J.P. Morgan.

“The return of the physical surplus, combined with news of a potential agreement between the U.S. and Iran, is rapidly eroding the premium embedded in oil prices,” the analysts wrote in a note to investors last week.

Several factors have brought the market back into balance, at least temporarily. More oil is flowing out from the Middle East. Production is growing in other parts of the world. And individuals and businesses are finding ways to use less fuel to avoid high prices.

Oil prices have also fallen because mediators have been presenting proposals to the Trump administration and Iranian officials, putting off the prospect of new attacks on Iran by the United States and Israel.

Even after the recent price slide, fuel remains much more expensive than it was when the war started for many reasons, including much higher shipping costs, depleted inventories and damaged refineries. In the United States, the national average price of gasoline was $4 a gallon Monday, according to AAA. That is down from $4.37 a month ago but still about $1 more than a year ago. At $6.17 a gallon, diesel fuel remains much more expensive than before the war. Elevated prices have been a boon to many oil companies, whose profits have soared during the war.

President Trump had previously said he was considering strikes on Iran after the midterm elections last week. Democrats took back both houses of Congress as voters expressed frustration with a war that caused fuel prices to soar.

That said, hostilities were continuing between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi militia of Yemen that is backed by Iran. The militia struck an office tower of the Saudi state oil company, Aramco, on Sunday.

On Monday, a key pipeline that moves oil across Saudi Arabia was attacked, the country’s Ministry of Energy said, without identifying who was behind the attack. The ministry said pipeline operations were not affected.

For now, however, oil traders appear to be more focused on the prospects for peace between Iran and the United States.

Jorge León, a senior vice president with Rystad Energy, a consulting firm, said in a note last week that the market appeared to be anticipating that Mr. Trump would face domestic and international pressure to end the war after his party’s drubbing in the midterm elections.

He noted that prices began to decline before Tuesday’s election, “but accelerated after the Democratic sweep.”

But, Mr. Leon cautioned, “we believe there are still compelling reasons to expect a further, potentially short-lived, phase of military escalation in the coming weeks.”

Some oil analysts pointed to a post-election social media post in which Vice President JD Vance blamed the war for Republican defeats in the election. Mr. Vance has been closely involved in negotiating with Iranian officials.

Hamad Hussain, a senior economist with Capital Economics, a research firm, said Mr. Vance’s words heightened assumptions that a deal could be clinched between the United States and Iran, though “a lot of uncertainty” remained about when the war would end.

“The post showed a recognition that the war and the rise of oil prices hurt Republicans at the polls,” Mr. Hussain said. But, he added, “there’s not been much of an indication of whether the Trump administration is actually going to budge, or if the Iranians are actually going to budge on their demands.”

Other chipmaker stocks rallied, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor index, a benchmark for the industry, rising almost 7 percent, its best day since July.

Monday’s market moves extended last week’s whipsaw volatility, as jittery investors continue to recalibrate their bets on artificial intelligence, leading to some sharp stock swings.

Nvidia’s board has said that it has no reason to believe national security or the company’s own trade secrets have been compromised, but the chipmaker’s sheer size and significance to the A.I. trade means that the news will reverberate across Wall Street.

Nvidia and Mr. Huang initially said there was nothing problematic or unusual about his relationship with Alice Huang, who became a U.S. government concern after surveillance revealed that she was feeding information directly to Beijing. Ms. Huang is a top executive at a Singapore-based data center company that had become one of Nvidia’s biggest customers in Southeast Asia.

Investors were already reeling from a sharp sell-off in many of the tech companies that have driven the development of artificial intelligence, like Nvidia. Those fears picked up again last week as the initial relief rally following the midterm election results turned to a sharp sell-off, with investors anticipating that state and local governments controlled by Democrats could lead to a slowdown in A.I infrastructure projects.

Nvidia’s stock fell nearly 9 percent last week and is now about 25 percent below its peak at the start of October, a decline that erased some $1 trillion in market value. The sharp fall put the company in a bear market, defined as a drop of 20 percent or more from a recent high.

“We believe demand for the company’s products seems unlikely to be affected, but it seems plausible to postulate increased risks” for the A.I. industry’s momentum, analysts from Bernstein wrote in a note on Monday, “as A.I. build-outs become an increasingly political issue.” The scandal engulfing Mr. Huang also highlighted what’s known as “key man risk” for Nvidia, the analysts added, given how tightly associated he is with the company he co-founded more than 30 years ago. “Nvidia is not an ordinary company and Jensen is not an ordinary C.E.O.,” they wrote.

Nvidia became the world’s largest public company, by market value, for the first time in 2024, exerting an outsize influence over major indexes like the S&P 500. The rapid run-up in Nvidia’s share price put it at the forefront of an exclusive club of tech giants known as the “Magnificent Seven,” which now dominate the stock market.

It was the first company to hit $4 trillion and then $5 trillion in value, as it rode the A.I. boom to dizzying heights. Analysts expect the company to make a profit of well over $200 billion this year, with its chips in high demand as tech companies rush to build giant A.I. data centers.

But as investors have recently turned more wary of sky-high A.I. valuations and the seemingly circular investments of the industry’s largest players, Nvidia’s stock has stumbled. During last week’s market turmoil, Nvidia fell below Apple as the world’s biggest company.

The company’s shares are now roughly flat for the year, although remain significantly higher over longer time periods. Analysts remain bullish, with more than 90 percent of those who cover the stock rating it a “buy,” according to a compilation by FactSet, with an average price target nearly 80 percent higher than where it closed trading on Friday.

“This is a black eye moment for Jensen and will spark multiple congressional inquiries at a minimum,” Dan Ives, the senior managing director at Yorkville Ives, wrote in a research note on Sunday. The analyst, who is known for being consistently upbeat about tech stocks, warned that the revelations would “create an overhang on the stock.”

Job gains for August and September were revised upward by a total of 84,000, bringing the average increase per month over the past three months to 137,000. The labor force participation rate ticked up for the third month in a row.

“Workers are still nervous about the current state of the job market,” said Daniel Zhao, the chief economist at Glassdoor, a career site. “But at the very least, today’s report is a step in the right direction towards building up that worker confidence again.”

A big question hanging over the labor market, and the economy more broadly, is the impact of A.I. on jobs. Investors’ concerns about the trajectory of investments in the technology sent stocks plummeting on Thursday.

So far, A.I. does not appear to be leading to widespread job losses despite some headline-grabbing announcements. The job gains last month were relatively widespread, with a range of sectors adding positions. Even some white-collar industries thought to be heavily exposed to technological disruption added jobs. Professional and business services, which include accountants, lawyers and other office work, gained 70,000 positions last month. The financial activities sector tacked on 7,000 jobs.