Consumer inflation ticked up one full percent in May, according to new data from the Department of Labor released Friday morning, meaning inflation in the last year has soared 8.6 percent as rising costs blew past consensus estimates that inflation would only increase 0.7 percent to remain even with April's 8.3 percent year-over-year increase.
May's inflation report is the worst for consumers since December 1981, coming the same week President Biden continued to claim that he was leading the United States in its best recovery in history.
CPI: Inflation blew past consensus estimates to hit a full one percent increase in May bringing YOY inflation to 8.6 percent — which means Americans took a real wage cut of 3.4 percent in the last year. Worst report since December 1981.
— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) June 10, 2022
May's "broad-based" increases saw "indexes for shelter, gasoline, and food being the largest contributors" while the energy index, after declining in April, "rose 3.9 percent over the month with the gasoline index rising 4.1 percent and the other major component indexes also increasing." In addition, "the food index rose 1.2 percent in May as the food at home index increased 1.4 percent."
In the last year, the food at home index notched an 11.9 percent increase, that metric's largest year-over-year increase since April 1979.
As the May report explains of soaring costs at the grocery store, all of the six major food groups measured in the CPI increased in the last 12 months, "with five of the six rising more than 10 percent" and eggs increasing more than 30 percent:
The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs increased the most, rising 14.2 percent, with the index for eggs increasing 32.2 percent. The remaining groups saw increases ranging from 8.2 percent (fruits and vegetables) to 12.6 percent.
Meanwhile, "food away from home" was up 7.4 percent over the last year, its biggest jump since November 1981.
When it comes to energy, another front on which Biden has brought a number of crises, that index was up 3.9 percent in May — after decreasing 2.7 percent in April — for a 34.6 percent increase over the last year. That number was driven by a 48.7 percent increase for gasoline over the last year. Electricity was up 12 percent in the same period, its largest 12-month increase since August 2006. And the index for fuel oil doubled and then some to 106.7 percent — the "largest increase in the history of the series, which dates to 1935."
On the housing front, the shelter index increased 0.6 percent in May, the largest such increase since March 2004. Meanwhile airline fares increased to 12.6 percent.
Compared against last week's jobs report that showed wages were up 5.2 percent year over year, Americans have taken a real wage cut of 3.4 percent in the last year under President Biden's "build back better" agenda.
The May consumer inflation report comes the same week President Biden did his first sit-down interview in more than 100 days with his pal Jimmy Kimmel and claimed "we have the fastest growing economy in the world, the world, the world," which would only be true if he was talking about growing prices.
Biden: "We have the fastest growing economy in the world." pic.twitter.com/BKbQgHnywF
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 9, 2022
Not that Biden cares, but the U.S. economy is actually shrinking, as reported for the first quarter.