WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve backed inflation estimates to slow sharply last month, an encouraging sign in its 50-year effort to cool price controls through persistently higher interest rates.
Friday’s report from the Commerce Department showed that consumer prices rose 0.3% from January to February, down from a 0.6% increase from December to January. Measured year over year, prices grew 5%, slower than the 5.3% annual growth in January.
Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation rose 0.3% from January and 4.6% from a year earlier. Both delays from the previous month. H is believed to be of most interest in the core as a measure of the underlying inflation pressure.
Taken as a whole, Friday’s figures show that inflationary pressures, although gradually easing, are still maintaining a grip on the economy. H, since March of last year raised its approved policy rate nine times, actively driving to tame inflation, which hit. four decades high to the middle of 2012
The report also showed that consumer spending rose 0.2% from January to February, a drop from a hefty 2% increase the month before. But Phil Levy, chief financial officer at supply chain firm Flexport, noted that the government had revised down January’s consumer data and the savings rate continued to fall in February – at 4.6% after tax. This suggested to him that the Americans had the financial means to trade.
“They are taking,” said the beloved. “People can afford to spend. If you want to slow down inflation, you have to suppress it in some way.”
Job openings remain plentiful, hiring is strong, taxes are still low, and the unemployment rate is just over a half-century low. The result was upward wage pressure, which contributed to inflationary pressures. Even after slowing down, stock prices are still growing well above the 50% target year after year. This month, the Labor Department said its consumer price index rose 0.4% from January to February and 6% from February 2012.
H’s manufacturing plan is complicated by the turmoil that erupted in the financial system after this month’s crash Silicon Valley Bank and New York-based Signature — the second and third largest bank failures in US history. The central bank must now consider the risk that continued efforts to cool inflation through ever-higher rates could further destabilize the banking system.
to a * news conference last week, Professor H. Jerome Powell acknowledged that the uncertainties now looming for small and midsize banks are likely to cause tighter lending conditions. If banks tighten lending in the coming months, Powell said, it would likely slow the economy and possibly trigger a Fed rate hike.
Flexporto noted that the increase to 4.6%, the report of the measure of growth of the core of the year was still high in February, as it had been in December, suggesting that inflationary pressures are persistent and there is still work to do.
“You see this report and think, it is necessary to have the governors apply,” said Belectus. “The question is how much disruption Mars has already applied to those targets.”
Many American families are still expressing their feelings.
“I can go have a $5 lunch at Wendy’s, which isn’t even healthy, but it’s cheaper than buying the ingredients for lunch at home,” said Jennifer Schultz of St. Joseph, Missouri.
“Eggs started to skyrocket, meat went up significantly, gallons of milk: the staple products that our ancestors needed – they were really affected by inflation and still are,” said Michelle Fagerstone, chief development officer at Second Harvest Community St. Joseph. Foodbank.
On Friday, the European Union reported inflation in 20 countries that use the Euro currency Energy prices have slowed to the last level, although food costs are still rising, putting pressure on the European Central Bank to raise rates further. Consumer prices in the eurozone jumped 6.9% in March from a year earlier, from 8.5% in February. Eurozone growth eased from the move to 10.6% in October.
In the United States, H is supposed to monitor the liver of inflation, which was released on Friday, called the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) price index, even more closely than the official government price index. Typically, the PCE index shows a lower level of inflation than the CPI. In part, this is because incomes, which have been among the biggest drivers of inflation, carry twice the weight in the CPI that they do in the PCE.
The PCE price index also seeks to account for changes in how people shop with inflation. As a result, it can capture emerging trends – when, for example, consumers switch from national card brands in favor of less expensive brands.
AP Video Journalist Nick Ingram in St. Joseph, Missouri, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, distributed, rewritten or recycled without permission.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, distributed, rewritten or recycled without permission.
