American consumers did not see relief from rising prices in August according to the latest print of the Consumer Price Index released Tuesday as the Biden administration and Federal Reserve fail in another month to bring prices down from their 40-year highs.
Instead, the latest inflation report surpassed economists' expectations for both the main and core CPI read after the Biden administration attempted a victory lap over what they misleadingly called "no inflation" last month. Even ABC News noted that August's "data calls into question whether inflation has peaked." Spoiler alert: it hasn't.
The costs of goods and services, according to the CPI, advanced 0.1 percent in August and are up 8.3 percent in the last 12 months. According to a release accompanying the data, "increases in the shelter, food, and medical care indexes were the largest of many contributors to the broad-based monthly all items increase" seen in August while "the food index continued to rise, increasing 0.8 percent over the month as the food at home index rose 0.7 percent and "the energy index fell 5.0 percent over the month as the gasoline index declined, but the electricity and natural gas indexes increased."
CPI for all items rises 0.1% in August as shelter and food increase, gasoline falls https://t.co/dJyJeKlXDJ #CPI #BLSdata
— BLS-Labor Statistics (@BLS_gov) September 13, 2022
Meanwhile, the energy index jumped in August — as the northern hemisphere prepares for cooling temperatures and the need for more energy to heat homes and businesses — to an annual inflation rate of 23.8 percent. What's more, the food index jumped 11.4 percent in the last 12 months, the largest jump since May 1979.
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The CPI also showed that, excluding food and energy, the core inflation number jumped 0.6 percent in August — more than in July — to a 6.3 percent advance in the last 12 months, signaling that inflation had not previously peaked as Democrats had wishfully thought.
?? Consumer inflation still running at a super-hot 8.3%. Core inflation — stripping out food and energy — actually picking up steam, rising to a rate of 6.3%.??
— Dagen McDowell (@dagenmcdowell) September 13, 2022
"Core inflation in August rose at double the rate of expectations, indicating inflation shows no signs of slowing down," noted Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the Job Creators Network of August's inflation report that indicated "the Biden administration still has no control over runaway prices."
House Budget Committee GOP Leader Jason Smith pointed out Tuesday morning that inflation has increased more than 13 percent since President Biden took office while real wages have decreased more than 4 percent in the same period. That is, Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda is still, nearly two years in, a failure.
Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) also reacted to "yet another month of blistering inflation" by saying that, "try as they might, no baseless victory lap or out-of-touch press release from the Biden Administration will change the stark reality that financial hardships are greater and wallets are emptier since Joe Biden stepped into office."
Nevertheless, Biden and his administration are likely to attempt another victory lap on another terrible inflation report that will likely trigger even more aggressive interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve at their next meeting as their previous historic rate increases have failed to flatten or bring down consumer prices.
As Townhall reported last month, Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned that "restoring price stability will take some time and requires using our tools forcefully to bring demand and supply into better balance," action that will "bring some pain to households and businesses." With a stated goal of lowering inflation to a target of just 2 percent from the current 8.3 percent reported Tuesday, that's a lot of pain ahead for an economy that already entered a recession.
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