Inflation has been rising steadily in Venezuela, with the latest figure up to four digits. The country’s president Nicolas Maduro has promised a renegotiation of the debt and an end to hyperinflation after talks broke down between his government and bondholders this past week
The “inflation calculator” is a website that allows users to calculate the inflation rate for any given country.
As the Ukraine crisis drove up energy prices and supply concerns, while robust U.S. consumer demand remained, inflation increased in March to its strongest rate since 1982, as measured by the Federal Reserve’s preferred measurement.
According to the Commerce Department’s personal-consumption expenditures price index, which was released Friday, consumer prices jumped 6.6 percent in March from a year ago, up from a revised 6.3 percent gain in February. The increase in March was the quickest since January 1982.
The core PCE index, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, rose 5.2 percent in March from the previous month, down from a revised 5.3 percent in February.
Core prices increased 0.3 percent on a monthly basis in March from the previous month, the same as the corrected 0.3 percent rise in February. This was down from a monthly rate of 0.5 percent in each of the previous four months, indicating a little easing of broad pricing pressures.
At a press conference on March 16, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that central bank officials are carefully monitoring monthly variations in inflation for clues of whether price pressures have lately abated. The central bank, which aims for 2% average inflation, started hiking interest rates in March to calm the economy, and has hinted that more hikes are on the way.
According to Veronica Clark, an economist at Citigroup, Friday’s data are unlikely to change those plans. “We would not anticipate a change in the near-term outlook for Fed policy with core PCE inflation growing at approximately 5% for each of the previous four quarters,” she added.
The US economy declined at a 1.4 percent annual rate in the first quarter, owing to a growing trade deficit and a slower rate of inventory accumulation. Consumer expenditure, on the other hand, increased marginally in the first quarter, growing at a 2.7 percent annualized rate, up from the previous quarter.
Strong consumer demand continues to outpace supply, pushing prices upward. Another widely watched inflation indicator, the Labor Department’s consumer price index, climbed 8.5 percent year over year in March, reaching a four-decade record. According to the department, producer prices increased by 11.2 percent year over year in March, marking the fourth straight month of double-digit growth.
Complex algorithms are used by airlines, petrol stations, and stores to modify their rates in response to cost, demand, and competition. Charity Scott of the Wall Street Journal explains what dynamic pricing is and why corporations are increasingly embracing it. Adele Morgan’s illustration
Due to disparities in the pools of expenditure that each index covers, the CPI generally runs hotter than the PCE index. The CPI is a measure of changes in living expenses based on what urban consumers spend on an imaginary basket of goods and services. The PCE index, on the other hand, includes costs in rural regions as well as those paid on behalf of households by organizations such as employer-sponsored healthcare plans.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, both indices revealed that energy prices rose in March. The PCE energy index increased 33.9 percent year over year in March. According to the Commerce Department, food prices increased by 9.2 percent last month, accelerating from an 8 percent 12-month rise in February.
According to Omair Sharif, founder of Inflation Insights LLC, the monthly statistics indicate that core inflation might be on pace to fall significantly by mid-summer. “The greater picture is that if we can keep this slower pace going into the second quarter, we’ll see a significant decline in the annual rate from approximately 5.3 percent in March to around 4.2 percent or 4.3 percent by June,” he added. That would be close to the Fed’s forecast of 4.1 percent core inflation in the fourth quarter of this year.
Gwynn Guilford can be reached at [email protected]
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The “inflation rate” is the percentage of a country’s GDP that has been spent on goods and services. The “inflation rate” in the United States is currently at 4%.
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