Why prices from these cities in Utah and Nebraska won't be included in inflation data

Staffing shortages have forced the U.S. federal government to scale back the price checks it uses to calculate the inflation rate. Economists are warning that could lead to less accurate cost-of-living reports.

Every month, hundreds of government employees check the price of goods and services in cities around the country and those numbers are crunched to produce the inflation measure known as the consumer price index, or CPI.

This week, the Labor Department said it had cut back on price checks nationwide and suspended them entirely in some cities because it didn't have enough people to do the work.

The agency suspended data gathering altogether in Lincoln, Neb., and Provo, Utah in April and halted it in Buffalo, N.Y., this month.

Federal government hiring freeze

The Bureau of Labor S