Inflation Hits 8.5% -- Highest in 41 Years

Inflation Hits 8.5% -- Highest in 41 Years

The U.S. Department of Labor has released the inflation numbers and they are a record high for the past 40 plus years.

Inflation is now at 8.5%, driven most heavily by gas and food prices.

“We’re seeing strong inflation momentum across the board, both for goods and services,” Blerina Uruci, U.S. economist at T. Rowe Price Group Inc., said ahead of the report to the Wall Street Journal. Uruci said supply-chain constraints continue to push prices up, except for an easing of the costs for used cars.

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“To me, this is a red flag,” said Uruci. “The other red flag is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the rise of Covid in China. Those pose risks that the so-called normalization of supply chains takes longer to materialize.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that the Labor Department’s previous report did not include some of the price increases tied to increasing energy costs.

“We expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin’s price hike,” Psaki told reporters.