The latest inflation numbers came out on Wednesday and the results are even worse than expected.
The White House had been bracing for a negative report, but even these numbers appear to be showing a worsening problem that the Biden administration still doesn’t have a handle on.
The consumer price index shows a year-over-year increase of 9.1%, the highest inflation rate once again in the past 40 years. Prices on consumer goods and essentials continue to rise causing a “cost of living crisis” for many American households:
Shoppers paid sharply higher prices for a variety of goods in June as inflation kept its hold on a slowing U.S. economy, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.
The consumer price index, a broad measure of everyday goods and services related to the cost of living, soared 9.1% from a year ago, above the 8.8% Dow Jones estimate. That marked another month of the fastest pace for inflation going back to December 1981.
Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core CPI increased 5.9%, compared with the 5.7% estimate. Core inflation peaked at 6.5% in March and has been nudging down since.
On a monthly basis, headline CPI rose 1.3% and core CPI was up 0.7%, compared to respective estimates of 1.1% and 0.5%.
Taken together, the numbers seemed to counter the narrative that inflation may be peaking, as the gains were based across a variety of categories.
In search of any silver lining, the White House pointed to gas prices which have cooled in recent weeks dropping from a peak of over $5 per gallon nationally. The current national average according to AAA is around $4.63 per gallon for regular unleaded, a welcome change for a president fighting economic calamity on all fronts.
While prices continue rising, wages are being eaten up causing a real crisis in households barely able to make ends meet:
For workers, the numbers meant another hit to the wallet, as inflation-adjusted incomes, based on average hourly earnings, fell 1% for the month and were down 3.6% from a year ago, according to a separate BLS release.
Policymakers have struggled to come up with answer to a situation that is rooted in multiple factors, including clogged supply chains, outsized demand for goods over services, and trillions of dollars in Covid-related stimulus spending that has made consumers both flush with cash and confronted with the highest prices since the early days of the Reagan administration.
Once again, if any more evidence was needed, it’s the economy, stupid.
If Biden can’t change the perception that he and his team are clueless or totally inept to the economic reality happening around them, Democrats are toast in November, abortion can’t save them.
As the Associated Press reports, there is no area of the economy immune from rising prices and seemingly no change in trajectory on the horizon:
“There may be some relief in the July numbers — commodity prices have come off the boil, at least — but we are a very, very long way from inflation normalizing, and there is no tangible sign of downward momentum,” said Eric Winograd, an economist at asset manager AB.
The breadth of the price gains shows how rising costs have seeped into nearly every corner of the economy. Grocery prices have jumped 12.2% compared with a year ago, the steepest such climb since 1979. Rents have risen 5.8%, the most since 1986. New car prices have increased 11.4% from a year earlier. And airline fares, one of the few items to post a price decline in June, are nevertheless up 34% from a year earlier.
That’s gloomy.
The Biden malaise is real and now baked into the midterm cake. As Americans tune out over the summer months spending days on the beach or simply away from certain parts of life, like watching the news, the shock will come in September when voters focus on the upcoming midterm election.
The country seems ripe for change if Republicans can manage not to screw it up along the way.
