The Consumer Price Index for September shows that inflation isn’t going away as fast as the Federal Reserve has been hoping it would. This means the central bank will likely keep raising interest rates and a recession is even more likely than ever.
Nothing seems to be working when it comes to inflation. The Consumer Price Index fell to 8.2 percent in September, and while the Labor Department’s gauge of price increases backed off from the generational peak of 9.1 percent it reached in June, the overall news isn’t so comforting. Rent, food, and medical costs — things that make up the bulk of people’s spending — are seemingly unaffected by the Federal Reserve’s campaign to cool the economy with higher interest rates. When markets opened, the Dow Jones Industrial Average immediately tanked, falling 500 points. The message here is that the overall affordability of the economy is getting worse and the latest data is flashing a warning that it may not get better soon.
Some of these numbers show just how stubborn inflation is right now: Groceries are 13 percent higher than they were a year ago; eating out is 8.5 percent higher. Energy costs are about 20 percent more than they were last fall, and that’s factoring in the recent fall in oil prices.
