WASHINGTON – U.S. inflation remained elevated last month as the costs of some imported goods rose while rental prices cooled.

Consumer prices increased 3% in September from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Friday, up from 2.9% in August. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices also rose 3%, a decline from 3.1% in the previous month. Both figures are above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

The report on the consumer price index is being issued more than a week late because of the government shutdown , now in its fourth week. The Trump administration recalled some Labor Department employees to produce the figures because they are used to set the annual cost-of-living adjustment for roughly 70 million Social Security recipients.

The figures reflect a

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