Tag: inflation

Inflation Refuses to Go Away as Prices Stay Elevated

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Inflation ticked slightly down year-over-year in November but continued to remain well above the Federal Reserve’s target, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) release on Tuesday.

The consumer price index (CPI), a broad measure of the prices of everyday goods, increased 3.1% on an annual basis in November, compared to 3.2% in October, according to the BLS. Core CPI, which excludes the volatile categories of energy and food, remained high, rising 4.0% year-over-year in October, compared to 4.0% in October.

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Commentary: Bidenomics Is The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

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The labor market continues to soften, with 199,000 jobs created last month, well below the recent average. Real job creation is far lower than this topline number suggests. Nearly 50,000 jobs were unproductive government jobs, continuing the trend of disproportionately high government job growth. The return of striking auto workers accounted for about 30,000 jobs. And 77,000 jobs were created in healthcare, which is a quasi-government industry. That leaves only about 40,000 jobs created in the real economy.

Real wages continue to stagnate, growing at the same rate as core inflation following significant declines in the first two years of Biden’s presidency. As usual, job creation in previous months was revised down in today’s report. Nearly one million more Americans are unemployed since April.

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Commentary: Joe Biden’s Failures Are His Successes

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Joe Biden Bidenomics

If you were the owner of a professional football team, and you had just finished in last place for the third year in a row, one would expect management to implement serious personnel changes before the following season—that is if the team actually cared about winning.

Maybe the team needs a new coach that the players respect and trust to make the right play calls. Maybe they need a quarterback that doesn’t lead the league in interceptions and can run outside the pocket. Maybe they need an offensive line that will actually protect the quarterback from hitting the deck on every third and long. Maybe they need a kicker who doesn’t choke under pressure. Or maybe they just need their star wide receiver to stay healthy.

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Inflation Has Cost Average Americans over $11,000 per Year Under Biden

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Just to maintain the same standard of living that Americans had at the beginning of President Joe Biden’s term, households have to spend an additional $11,434 per year, according to CBS News.

Since January 2021, when Biden first took office, inflation has risen 17%, far outpacing the 2% per year that the Federal Reserve aims for, while average hourly wages have only increased 13.6%, according to the Congressional Joint Economic Committee’s (JEC) state inflation tracker. As a result, more Americans reported that they are struggling financially than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic as persistent inflation continues to take its toll, according to CBS News.

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Commentary: Hispanics Reject Biden’s Agenda

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Joe Biden and the Democrats hemorrhage Latino support into 2024. In fact, the trend grows into perhaps the biggest single liability for the Left into next year’s election. The liberal site Axios sent up a warning flare, declaring the breakdown in Biden’s Hispanic support as “an alarming, re-election-threatening, full-blown crisis for the White House.”

The latest battleground state polling from my organization, the League of American Workers, validates that assessment, and points to potential seismic gains for the cause of patriotic populism among Hispanics this election cycle. Specifically, the latest survey highlights massive Hispanic dissatisfaction with Biden and leftist policies in the key battleground of Arizona, one of the most Hispanic states in America.

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Analysis: Consumer Prices Up 6.1 Percent Since April 2021 a Personal Income Falls Behind

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by Robert Romano   The U.S. economy has been on a rollercoaster ever since the COVID pandemic of 2020, first with high unemployment and near deflationary levels as the global economy was locked down, followed by a deluge of government spending, borrowing and printing almost $7 trillion, followed by inflation that has largely outstripped incomes. The last of the COVID transfer payments, which contributed substantially to the inflation — what Milton Friedman dubbed “helicopter money” — went out in March 2021, and so the question is how have the American people been faring since? Nominal personal income has increased at an average, annual rate of 4.4 percent, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the meantime, the Consumer Price Index has increased at an average annual rate of 6.1 percent. The Bureau of Economic Analysis defines personal income as “The income that persons receive in return for their provision of labor, land, and capital used in current production, plus current transfer receipts less contributions for government social insurance (domestic).” That’s slightly confusing, and so the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank defines personal income it as “the income that persons receive in return for their provision of labor,…

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Commentary: The High Price of Gaslighting Americans on Bidenomics’ ‘Success’

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Anyone still wondering why voters trust former President Trump more than President Biden on the economy should read what the White House posted on X about inflation last week: “Ahead of the holiday season, costs are down for everything from airline tickets and car rentals to toys and TVs.” Biden and his underlings continue to believe public disapproval of his disastrous economic performance can be improved with happy talk and cherry picked statistics. It assumes Americans can’t remember how much less the cost of living was when Biden was elected.

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Retailers Brace for Slow Holiday Season as Inflation Bites

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Consumers are expected to cut back on discretionary spending this holiday season, hurting retailers, amid persistent inflation and declining savings, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The National Retail Federation anticipates consumer spending to rise around 3% to 4% in November and December, not including inflation, compared to a 5.4% increase that was observed in 2022 and a 5.4% gain in 2021 during the same time frame, according to the WSJ. In an effort to increase sales, many retailers are giving deeper discounts to lure consumers who may be apprehensive about buying products they don’t need, looking to boost their sales on Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the last two weeks of December, when holiday deals typically occur.

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Commentary: Argentina’s First-Ever Libertarian President

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Voters in Argentina have elected a libertarian as president for the first time in their history. On Sunday, Argentina had its second round of voting, and Javier Milei received 55.69% of the vote against the Peronist Sergio Massa’s 44.31%. In a country that suffers 143% annual inflation and a poverty rate hovering around 43%, Milei has a long and difficult road ahead.

Milei’s win marks the first time in 40 years that someone outside Argentina’s two largest parties was elected. La Libertad Avanza, Milei’s 3-year-old political party, finally broke through the entrenched and archaic political apparatus. In a tweet back in June, Milei stated that Argentina was choosing between the old politics and the new ideas. During his presidential campaign, Milei pledged to tackle Argentina’s inflationary unhealthy economy by dollarizing the peso and minimizing government spending.

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Commentary: Red Warning Lights Are Flashing on U.S. Economy as 2024 Rapidly Approaches

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As 2023 is winding down to a close, the U.S. trade in goods deficit with the world is down $101 billion for the first nine months of the year to $802 billion, an 11.2 percent decrease so far, with still three months of data left to collect for the year, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Simultaneously, existing home sales measured by the National Association of Realtors are down to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.79 million, a 16.7 percent decrease from its Feb. 2023 level of 4.5 million, and are averaging 4.16 million for the past 12 months. Overall, existing home sales are down the past 12 months by almost 32 percent from their 2021 high of 6.12 million. That’s a lot.

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Mortgage Applications Increase to Six-Week High

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Applications for mortgages ticked up to a six-week high for the week ending on Nov. 17 in a sign that the housing market might become more accessible to average Americans following rising prices and high mortgage rates, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

The number of mortgage applications increased by 3% compared to a week earlier when seasonally adjusted, according to a press release from the MBA. The increase in volume follows a decline in the average interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, which fell to 7.41% from 7.61% in the same time period.

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Commentary: Five Stupid Things the Left Would Have You Believe

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I was on a media panel talking about what the Left has done to the Fourth Estate in America and how that damage might ultimately be repaired. And afterward, I spent a lot of time interacting with sponsors and attendees, and a common thread seemed to run through those conversations.

Namely, the multiplicity of utterly indefensible, absurd propositions that make up the narratives and constructs by which our left-wing current ruling class seeks to base its power over us.

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Cost of Thanksgiving Meal Up 14 Percent, Study Finds

Peter D'Abrosca
Turkey Dinner with all the Trimmings

According to a University of Tennessee (UT) study, American families will be spending more on this year’s Thanksgiving dinner. 

A team from the university, led by Professor and Consumer Economics Specialist Ann Berry, surveyed grocery store pricing for Thanksgiving staples between November 1 to November 8, “including turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, English pea salad, deviled eggs, pumpkin pie with whipped cream and rolls.”

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As Inflation Worries Investors, Wall Street Is Buying Up American Soil

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Wall Street is moving to buy up U.S. farmland in hopes that it will be a safe bet to hedge against inflation and concerning economic conditions, according to Reuters.

Investment funds have accumulated over a million acres of farmland in the U.S., a small part of the 900 million acres in the U.S. but significant for the market when looking at the pace of acquisitions, according to Reuters. The move from investors is drawing the concern of some, including lawmakers, who see the quick constraint on supply as a barrier for the next generation of farmers who can’t buy at the elevated price.

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Arizona Inflation Slows in October, Though Residents Still Pay Thousands More

The Center Square

After months of experiencing some of America’s highest inflation rates, federal data shows many Arizonans are finally starting to see some relief.

A new report from the Common Sense Institute of Arizona reviews federal inflation data from October. The research organization found most aspects of the state’s Consumer Price Index have slowed from being among the highest in the nation at 9% in January.

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Commentary: As Consumer and Producer Inflation Cools, Recession Maybe on the Horizon in 2024

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Both annualized consumer and producer inflation decreased in October from 3.7 percent to 3.2 percent and from 2.2 percent to 1.3 percent, respectively, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, amid a drops in oil prices.

On the consumer side, gasoline prices dropped 5 percent in October and are down 5.3 percent over the past twelve months.

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Inflation Still Biting Homebuyers as Headline Number Falls

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The price of shelter increased substantially in October despite topline month-to-month inflation remaining flat, dashing many Americans’ dreams of buying a home, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Inflation decelerated to 3.2% in October, down from 3.7% in September, owing to substantial deflation in the price of energy, but the shelter sector individually had prices increase by 5.5% for the year. Since the beginning of 2021, when President Joe Biden first took office, home prices have risen 29%, rents are up 17% and mortgage rates have neared 8%, according to the WSJ.

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October Inflation Rate 3.2 Percent, Unchanged from Previous Month and Above Target Rate: Feds

Just the News

The seasonally adjusted inflation rate for October 2023 remained unchanged from the previous month and sits at 3.2%, according to the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index Report released Tuesday. 

The rate increased by 3.2%, compared to October 2022. In September, inflation was at 3.7% compared to the same time the previous year.

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Childcare Costs Rising Even Faster than Sky-High Inflation, Report Reveals

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The cost Americans are paying to provide childcare for their kids has risen dramatically since 2019, outpacing inflation overall, which has also risen substantially, according to the Bank of America (BofA) Institute.

The average childcare payment has risen by 32% since 2019 to $700 a month as of September, affecting middle- and upper-income households the most, according to data compiled by the BofA Institute. In that same time period, general inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, rose 20% following a highly inflationary period since President Joe Biden took office in 2021, according to Axios.

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Economy Shows Huge Growth in Third Quarter as Fed Struggles to Rein in Inflation

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The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 4.9% in the third quarter of 2023, according to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistics released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) on Thursday morning.

In the second quarter of 2023, real GDP rose 2.1% after being revised down from an initial estimate of 2.4%. Economists expected that GDP would be around 4.7% for the third quarter of 2023, far higher than the 2% to 3% that is common for the U.S.

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Commentary: The People in Charge of Our Money Supply Have No Idea What They’re Doing

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If you still think the people running America’s central bank understand inflation and interest rates, think again.

A prime example is Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee, who was wrong about inflation and is now wrong about interest rates and a soft landing for the economy. He is an ideologue clearly undeterred by facts—a scary reality for someone who helps control the money supply.

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Sky-High Inflation Is Ratcheting Up Healthcare Costs for Working Americans

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The costs of health care for average Americans have been hit particularly hard by the sustained high inflation the U.S. economy has seen over the past few years, according to KFF, a nonpartisan organization focused on health policy.

Just this year, premiums on family health insurance coverage for workplace plans increased by 7%, even as Americans’ wages only grew by 5.2% and total inflation rose by 5.8%, while over the last five years, premiums have risen 22% with wages increasing 27% and inflation 21%, according to a KFF news release. Inflation has continued to remain well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, rising 3.7% year-over-year in September after increasing the same in August.

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Home Sales Decline to 2008 Levels as Record Mortgage Rates Take Their Toll

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The U.S. real estate market is on track to sell the least number of homes since 2008, when Americans were engulfed in the subprime mortgage crisis and the Great Recession, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The number of total existing-home sales is projected to reach only 4.1 million by the end of 2023, the lowest since around 2008, when the world was embroiled in a global financial crisis, despite a higher U.S. population, according to the WSJ. Mortgage rates are currently at their highest point since the year 2000, with the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 7.57 percent, bringing purchasing demands for housing to a three-decade low, according to Freddie Mac.

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Inflation Continues to Rise, Federal Data Shows

The Center Square

Consumer prices rose significantly in September, newly released federal inflation data shows, further undoing a trend of slowing inflation that had begun earlier this year.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday released its Consumer Price Index, a key marker of inflation that tracks the cost of a range of consumer goods and services. That index rose 0.4% in September alone, a notable increase that is higher than months earlier this year.

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Investors Say They are Betting Inflation Is Here to Stay

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Wall Street sign

Investors bet on the U.S. entering an era of sustained high inflation as Treasury yields spike, according to Reuters.

The bond market has seen a surge in interest rates for 10-year Treasury yields, reaching 4.59 percent, the highest point since September 2007 before the country was sent into a recession just months later, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The state of the bond market indicates that investors believe that the age of low inflation and interest rates is over as the country enters a “high-pressure equilibrium,” driving inflation higher than what was previously considered normal, according to Reuters.

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Inflation Surges Above Expectations Despite Fed’s Rate Hikes

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Inflation rose significantly in August, marking the second month in a row that inflation has ticked up, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) release on Wednesday.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), a broad measure of the prices of everyday goods, increased 3.7% on an annual basis in August, compared to 3.2% in July, according to the BLS. Core CPI, which excludes the volatile categories of energy and food, remained high, rising 4.3% year-over-year in August, compared to 4.7% in July.

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More Americans Taking Second Jobs, Part-Time Work as Inflation Continues to Rage

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An increasing number of Americans are taking up part-time work and even getting second jobs as worsening economic conditions such as high inflation have chipped away at their finances, according to experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The median real weekly earnings for Americans are down 2.1% since the first quarter of the Biden administration, with data from August showing a spike in the unemployment rate and a job market that is beginning to cool, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Due to wages failing to keep up with inflation and debt levels increasing, workers are increasingly taking part-time jobs and even second jobs in order to make ends meet, according to economists who spoke with the DCNF.

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Small Businesses Feel the Pain of Inflation-Driven Interest Rates

The Center Square

Small business owners are feeling the pain of inflation-driven interest rate hikes, another difficulty for those owners to overcome as they continue to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic-era shutdowns.

A rash of federal spending and an increase in the money supply in recent years have fueled inflationary pressures. Prices soared during the beginning of the Biden administration, making it hard for Americans to make ends meet.

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Powell Signals More Rate Hikes Could Be On The Horizon

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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell raised the possibility of more interest rate hikes in prepared remarks Friday as inflation remains above the Fed’s target rate.

Powell hinted that the Fed will raise interest rates in the future if factors like high inflation, a hot labor market and sustained economic growth persist, according to a speech given by Powell at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. Interest rates have been raised 11 times since March 2022 in an effort to fight inflation, bringing the federal funds rate within a range of 5.25% and 5.50%, the highest rate since January 2001.

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Biden Peddles Policy Success in Badger State; the Numbers Tell a Different Story

M.D. Kittle

On the one-year anniversary of the ill-named Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden paid a call on Milwaukee to sell his tax-and-spend policies that the White House likes to call “Bidenomics.”

But a lot of Badger State residents who have seen their earnings swallowed up by the inflation fueled in no small part by “Bidenomics” aren’t seeing the benefits the president is touting.

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Interest Rate Hikes Fail to Pump the Brakes as Inflation Rises

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Inflation rose in July after steadily declining from a high of 9.1% in June 2022, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) release on Thursday.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), a broad measure of the prices of everyday goods like energy and food, increased 3.2% on an annual basis in July, compared to 3.0% in June, according to the BLS. Core CPI, which excludes the volatile categories of energy and food, remained high, rising 4.7% year-over-year in July, compared to 4.8% in June.

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Wisconsin Lawmakers Introduce ‘Tiny Tot Tax Cut’

M.D. Kittle

Taking a page from a Florida plan to bring tax relief to families, two Badger State Republican legislators are pushing a bill that would create a sales tax exemption on baby-related products.

State Representative David Steffen (R-Howard) and State Senator Jesse James (R-Altoona) recently introduced the “Tiny Tot Tax Cut” to help fight inflation where it can hurt families the most.

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Inflation Tanks Small-Dollar Donations to 2024 Campaigns

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As prices across the country remain high, small-dollar donations have decreased for 2024 political campaigns, Politico reported Friday.

Although inflation fell in June, prices are still above pre-pandemic levels, and candidates who previously reaped the benefits of grassroots donations are not receiving them at the same degree, according to Politico. The campaign arms of House Republicans and Democrats, as well as presidential candidates, saw a drop in small-donor donations compared to previous cycles.

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Minnesota Business Firms Report Inflation, Wages Expectations in State Survey

The Center Square

Minnesota businesses reported their experience and expectations regarding inflation and other economic indicators in a new survey.

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis surveyed randomly selected 229 Minnesota firms in May and June, according to the report. The department announced the results this week.

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Independence Day Cookout Spending to Hit Record High Amid Inflation

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Individual spending on Fourth of July food items has risen to $93.34 on average across the U.S., the highest the National Retail Federation (NRF) has recorded since it began collecting this information in 2003.

The cost of one person’s July Fourth foods rose about 10 percent over the past year from $84.12, according to NRF. Inflation remained twice as high as the Federal Reserve’s target in May, according to a Labor Statistics (BLS) report, and the price of energy and food increased 4.0 percent on an annual basis last month.

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Commentary: ‘Bidenomics’ Are Leaving Americans Behind

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“When you think about wages going up, when you think about inflation at its lowest by more than 50 percent than it was a year ago, that’s because of the work that this President has done.  And he’s going to continue to focus on what we can do to lower cost for the American people.  And so, that is incredibly important.”

That was White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on June 26, outlining President Joe Biden’s views on the current state of the U.S. economy, which have seen a diminution of the purchasing power of American households as high inflation set in following the more than $6 trillion that was printed, borrowed and spent into existence for Covid coupled with the economic lockdowns and production halts—literally too much money chasing too few goods.

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Biden Sets Leftist Tone for 2024 Re-Election Effort at Philadelphia Event

Bradley Vasoli

President Joe Biden held his first presidential re-election campaign event on Saturday at the Philadelphia Convention Center, making strong appeals to his left-wing base. 

Biden appeared alongside organized-labor activists and mentioned in the first few seconds of his oration that when he thinks of working Americans, he especially values the ones who associate with causes he finds politically congenial.

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Pennsylvania Representatives Blast Biden on Quality-of-Life Issues Ahead of His Philadelphia Visit

Bradley Vasoli

One day before Joe Biden heads to a Saturday Philadelphia rally, U.S. Representatives Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA-14) and Dan Meuser (R-PA-9) excoriated him in a press call over quality of life issues. 

Joined by Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Lawrence Tabas, the two lawmakers blasted the president for seeking reelection in 2024, insisting Biden has made life worse for Americans on virtually every facet affected by public policy. They mentioned that inflation rages, real wages slump, energy production languishes, gas prices rise, fentanyl use spreads, reading and math scores tumble and crime swells. 

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