WASHINGTON, Oct 10, (AP): US inflation last month likely reached its lowest point since February 2021, clearing the way for another Federal Reserve rate cut and adding to the stream of encouraging economic data that has emerged in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. The consumer price index is expected to have risen just 2.3% in September from 12 months earlier, down from the 2.5% year-over-year increase in August, according to economists surveyed by FactSet, a data provider.

A reading that low, likely reflecting lower gas prices and only a slight rise in food costs, would barely exceed the Fed's 2% inflation target. A little over two years ago, inflation had reached a peak of 9.1%. Measured month over month, consumer prices are thought to have risen a scant 0.1% from August to September, down from a 0.2% increase the previous month. The improving inflation data follows a mostly healthy jobs report released last week, which showed that hiring accelerated in September and that the unemployment rate dropped from 4.2% to 4.1%.

The government has also reported that the economy expanded at a solid 3% annual rate in the April-June quarter. And growth likely continued at roughly that pace in the just-completed July-September quarter. Cooling inflation, steady hiring and solid growth could erode former President Donald Trump's advantage on the economy in the presidential campaign as measured by public opinion polls.

In some surveys, Vice President Kamala Harris has pulled even with Trump on the issue of who would best handle the economy, after Trump had decisively led President Joe Biden on the issue. At the same time, most voters still give the economy relatively poor marks, mostly because of the cumulative rise in prices over the past three years. For the Fed, last week's much-stronger-than-expected jobs report fueled some concern that the economy might not be cooling enough to slow inflation sufficiently.