By Thomas Catenacci
Inflation increased at a rapid 5.4% clip compared to August 2020, the Department of Labor said Wednesday.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI), a common tool used to measure inflation, increased 0.5% between June and July, according to the Labor Department report.
“It will be another very hot number with the fingerprints of the pandemic all over it,” Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi told CNBC before official numbers were released.
Energy and food costs contributed the most to the higher-than-normal figure, rising 0.7% and 1.6% respectively last month, the report showed. Gasoline ticked up 2.4% in July and a whopping 41.8% year-over-year.
The CPI increased at an annual rate of 5.4% in June, 5% in May and 4.2% in April, according to government data. Inflation rose 0.9% in June, the quickest increase since August 2008.
The Federal Reserve, which has downplayed rising consumer prices as a temporary product of the rapid economic recovery, acknowledged last month that inflation could be “higher and more persistent” than it previously forecasted. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently predicted continued “rapid inflation” over the medium term, after months of suggesting it would subside quickly.
The White House has repeated the predictions made by the Federal Reserve and Yellen, calling inflation transitory and ensuring it would return to normal by 2022.
“It’s also important to note, though — because we rely on the Federal Reserve for projections — that they are projecting to come back to normal levels next year, and this is still foreseen as a transitory impact on prices,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday.
She added that inflation remained at an elevated level due to a large number of supply chain shortages around the world, a theory prominent economists have backed.
“The kind of inflation now is driven by the fact that there aren’t enough used cars, that the oil markets are rocking and rolling, that housing construction demand is high and there’s been trouble getting sawmills up and running,” Beacon Economics founding partner Christopher Thornberg told The Wall Street Journal.
Used car prices have surged 41.7% over the last year, according to Wednesday’s Labor Department report.
Conservatives and other economists have blamed Biden’s high-spending for the increased prices affecting Americans.
“The Democrats’ reckless tax & spending spree fuels Biden’s raging inflation crisis & will drive U.S. debt to $45 TRILLION,” Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott tweeted Tuesday.
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When the farmers across New England have manure spreaders sitting idle after the last seasonal fertilizing – some good steward farmers in France found a fantastic use for them – a message they sent to their government that can’t be ignored! Perhaps it’s time for the manure to fly from the ground up rather than the top down!
These inflationary increases are a direct result of out-of-control GOVERNMENT spending and adding that spending to the already ENORMOUS US NATIONAL DEBT, financed by China and Europe to keep us addicted to “debt living”, and “pump priming”
Bernie is undermining Joe Manchin, who appears to be the only SANE Dem/Prog voice of conscience in the US Senate regarding GOVERNMENT DEFICIT spending.
Shame on the RINOS who are aiding and abetting the big-government-spending sprees of the Pelosi/Bernie/Schumer TROIKA
Oh well, Bernie is true to his decades of government spending.
After all, for him, it is logical to increase government spending to achieve more command/control
He has done that since he was a little boy
For him, it t is logical not to adequately fund the police
It is very simple.
The troika folks are arm-waving, face-making, rabble rousers.
They love Socialism-style disorder, and centralized government command/control
Bernie even celebrated his honeymoon in the USSR
The Russians played him like a fiddle, and he lapped it up.
Lenin, who “introduced” Communism to Russia more than 100 years ago, also was a rabble rouser, stirring up and taking advantage of people’s various dissatisfactions, promising a chicken in every Proletariat pot, paid for by those evil capitalists, such as Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bozos, without whom the US would be economically much less strong.
The USSR could only WISH to have such people. Bernie wants to handcuff and destroy them.
Bernie would irresponsibly GROW the federal government even more by adding a multitude of programs, plus another $3.5 to $5 TRILLION to the already-very-high US NATIONAL DEBT, FOR STARTERS, without even blinking an eye.