Many of us have doubts on this….
The price of pizza hasn’t….
The price of a gallon of gas hasn’t….
The price of a loan for a car and home hasn’t….
The price’s at McDonald’s haven’t much…..
Oh?
These bean counters ADMIT they do NOT count certain ‘core inflation’ things such as food and energy????
Huh?
There is a ways to go, especially on major categories such as rent. But encouraging signs were scattered throughout the Bureau of Labor Statistics report. Goods prices, from used cars to meats, saw declines compared to the month before. Categories that bulged over the past year, such as airfares and hotels, are also cooling off as demand settles back to normal.
Meanwhile, wages have grown faster than inflation for four straight months. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4 percent from May to June, outpacing inflation by 0.2 percent, according to a separate BLS report released Wednesday….
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Policymakers are especially fixated on a narrower measure of inflation known as “core inflation,” which strips out more volatile categories such as food and energy and can be especially hard to root out of the economy. That figure rose 0.2 percent in June compared to May, the smallest one-month increase in that index since August 2021, and a hopeful sign that policymakers won’t have to be even more aggressive in fighting sticky price increases.
The latest data reflects a drastically different economic picture than June 2022, when inflation soared to 9.1 percent, just months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices soaring. Part of the reason that this June’s inflation figure dropped so much is that the yearly data compares against last year’s peak. The energy index, for example, which drove inflation for much of last summer, is now down 16.7 percent for the 12 months ending June….
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The Biden administration, which has faced an uphill battle convincing Americans that it’s got a handle on inflation, cheered the latest progress. In recent weeks, the president has touted his “Bidenomics” plan as a way to rebuild the economy for the middle class. In a statement Wednesday, Biden said the new report showed “Bidenomics in action.”….