The majority of Americans feel they cannot keep up with the cost of living as inflation and the price of goods continue to rise, according to new polling data.
A poll from NBC News asked Americans, “Do you think that your family’s income is … going up faster than the cost of living, staying about even with the cost of living, or falling behind the cost of living?”
Read More
Small business owners are increasingly pessimistic about U.S. economic conditions and overwhelmingly support an expansion of domestic fossil fuel infrastructure, the latest polling data showed.
Just 27% of small business owners agreed the economy was in “good” or “excellent” condition, according to a Job Creators Network Foundation poll released Friday and shared with The Daily Caller News Foundation. The figure represented the lowest rating of the current economic situation among small business owners since the group began the poll a year ago.
Read More
Inflation continued its steady rise in April, when the Consumer Price Index increased 8.3% over last year, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
For the month, the CPI rose 0.3%. That’s down from the 1.2% spike in March, but higher than analysts expected. The 8.3% increase over last year remains near 40-year highs, the bureau reported.
Read More
Wholesale prices in March increased by 11.2%, compared to 12 months earlier, the Labor Department said Wednesday.
The report also show the prices increased 1.1% from February to March.
The newly released numbers follow the agency saying Tuesday the price of consumer goods in March increased by 8.5%, compared to the same time last year, making the Consumer Price Index’s so-called “annualized rate” the highest since December 1981.
Read More
Newly released federal inflation data show that prices continue to rise at the fastest rate in four decades, continuing the trend of soaring inflation.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Consumer Price Index, a key indicator of inflation, which showed prices rose an additional 1.2% in March, part of an 8.5 percent spike in the past 12 months.
Read More
The Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures the prices suppliers charge businesses and other customers, surged 0.8% on a month-over-month basis as of February as consumer demand continues to spur inflation, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced Tuesday.
The PPI grew 10% on a year-over-year basis as of February, the BLS reported Tuesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones estimated wholesale prices would increase 0.9% on a monthly basis in the latest report.
Read More
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.8% in February, bringing the key inflation indicator’s year-over-year increase to 7.9%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported.
The core price index, which measures inflation of goods less food and energy, increased 0.5% in February, the BLS reported. Food prices reportedly grew 7.9% on a year-over-year basis as of February, the BLS reported, and energy prices soared 25.6%.
Read More
Some Pennsylvania lawmakers are proposing that the commonwealth offset some of the inflationary burden on residents by pausing certain taxes.
One bill State Senator Lisa Boscola (D-Bethlehem) is currently drafting would stop sales taxation in June and July 2022 at a time the senator says the state can afford to do so. In a memorandum seeking co-sponsors for her bill, she cited Governor Tom Wolf’s (D) recent declaration that Pennsylvania will amass a budget surplus for Fiscal Year 2021-22 of over $2 billion and a similarly large surplus for the following year. Since budget years end on June 30, the legislation is thus timed to spread the financial loss to the state over both budget cycles.
Read More
People switching jobs during the Great Resignation contributed to rising inflation in 2021, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
“The idea is as follows: By applying for jobs in a different firm, employed workers can elicit wage competition between the current employer and the new candidate employer. The firm that intends to poach the worker from their current employer has to offer a sufficiently large wage to make the offer attractive. And if a worker is particularly valued by their own employer, they may be offered a pay raise that is necessary to retain them in their current job,” authors Renato Faccini, Leonardo Melosi and Russell Miles wrote in Chicago Fed Letter No. 465. “In this context, if employed workers search more, wage competition among employers increases, leading to an increase in inflationary pressures; if they search less, wage competition falls and inflationary pressures decrease.”
Read More
Consumer spending surged in January amid soaring inflation, the Commerce Department announced Wednesday.
Retail sales grew 3.8% in January, far exceeding the 2.1% Dow Jones estimate, the Commerce Department announced Wednesday. January’s figure represents the largest monthly increase since March 2021 and a significant snapback from December 2021 when sales decreased by 2.5%.
Read More
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.6% in January, bringing the key inflation indicator’s year-over-year increase to 7.5%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported.
The CPI remained at its near four-decade high throughout January, growing 7.5% on a year-over-year basis, the BLS reported Wednesday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal projected the index would rise around 7.2%.
Read More
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.5% in December, bringing the key inflation indicator’s year-over-year increase to 7%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported.
The CPI soared to 7% on a year-over-year basis in December, the highest level in almost four decades, the BLS reported Wednesday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal projected the index would soar past 7.1% in December.
“There’s still a lot of scarcity in the economy. Consumers and businesses are in great financial shape, and they’re willing to pay up for more goods, more services and more labor,” Sarah House, director, and senior economist at Wells Fargo, told the WSJ.
Read More
The Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures inflation at the wholesale level, soared 9.6% year-over-year as of November, growing at the fastest rate ever measured, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced Tuesday.
BLS reported that the PPI, which measures inflation before it hits consumers, grew 0.8% in November. As of October, the measure grew just 8.6% on a year-over-year basis and just 0.6% in that month alone, meaning wholesale prices grew more and to a worse yearly figure in November than they did in October.
Economists projected a year-over-year increase of the core PPI, which excludes food and energy prices, to be 7.2% year-over-year and a 0.4% increase from October, according to CNBC. Demand for goods was the biggest driver for the surge in producer prices, increasing 1.2% in November, slightly down from October’s 1.3% figure. Final demand services inflation increased 0.7% in November, much faster than October’s 0.2%.
Read More
Approval of President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy and coronavirus sank even further in recent days, according to a new CNBC All-America Economic survey.
Roughly 46% of respondents approved of Biden’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic while 48% disapproved, marking the first time his pandemic approval rating is underwater, according to CNBC. Biden’s economic approval also plummeted, with 37% approving and 56% disapproving.
“The Covid (approval) number is actually I think the more important one,” said Micah Roberts, a partner at Public Opinion Strategies, the Republican pollster for the survey. “As goes COVID, so goes the Biden presidency, and that’s really proving to be quite true.”
Read More
Online prices soared to record highs in November, according to Adobe Analytics.
Prices online surged 3.5% on a year-over-year basis as of November, the biggest increase since 2014, when Adobe started tracking the cost of goods on the internet and the 18th consecutive year of online inflation, according to the Adobe Digital Price Index (DPI). Prices on a month-to-month basis dropped 2% due to holiday discounts, according to Adobe.
“Census Bureau data shows that the e-commerce share of non-fuel retail spending has tripled over the last decade as more expenditures like groceries and home improvement move online,” Marshall Reinsdorf, former senior economist at International Monetary Fund, said in the report.
Read More
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.9% in November, bringing the key inflation indicator’s year-over-year increase to 6.8%, the highest figure in four decades.
The CPI’s increase is the largest increase in four decades, up from October’s 6.2% according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report released Friday morning. Experts surveyed by CNBC projected inflation would increase 0.7% in November, translating to a 6.7% gain on a year-over-year basis.
“These are frighteningly high inflation numbers, the likes of which we haven’t seen for decades,” Allen Sinai, chief global economist and strategist at Decision Economics, Inc., told The Wall Street Journal.
Read More
The Consumer Price Index increased 0.9% in October, bringing the key inflation indicator’s year-over-year increase to 6.2% as supply shortages continue and demand grows, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Wednesday.
The year-over-year inflation figure is an increase from September’s 5.3% level, marking the highest level in 30 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal projected the CPI would increase to just 5.9% in October.
Read More