June 13, 2023
Inflation has now been cut in half since last year’s peak. That means inflation has been slowly dropping for 11 straight months. But I know you’re going to say you don’t see it in your everyday life, I’m going to explain why in a second.
According to today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics — inflation in May was 4% higher than it was in May of 2022. That’s down from April when inflation was at 4.9% and down a lot since last June’s peak of 9.1%. You can see that dramatic drop in this graph.
The biggest drops were in the energy sector. So utilities, piped gas, electricity and yes even gasoline. But what’s still keeping inflation high – shelter. Overall — it’s up 8% over last year. And rent is up 8.7% from last year.
Food from the grocery store was up just a little bit –0.1% between April and May but egg prices plummeted almost 14% (13.8%) between April and May.
Now – that said – 4% inflation is still very high. And that is one of the reasons why you might not be feeling these decreases. Also “core inflation” continues to go up it’s sitting at 5.3% year over year. Core inflation excludes the volatile categories of food and energy but includes every single other item and service that’s measured for this report like apparel, TVs, cleaning products, hospital services. Like all the things we actually use and need. In May – core inflation increased 0.4% percent. Just like it did in April and March. Normally core inflation could increase by 0.1% or 0.2% month over month. But several months of 0.4% increases in core inflation is something you’re going to feel in your wallet.
The federal reserve wants inflation to be at 2%. The way that inflation comes down is by raising interest rates. That of course is up to the federal reserve and we’ll find out tomorrow if they decide to increase rates again or put a pause on raising rates this month.
If you want to see exactly what items went up and went down – I will email the consumer price index report to you tonight in my news girl news roundup email.
Read the Consumer Price Index for May here.
