Inflation Surges to New Record in June
U.S. inflation reached another 40-year high in June as gas, food and rent costs continues to climb. Prices increased 9.1% year over year, up from 8.6% in May, and surpassing the estimates of many economists who thought inflation peaked.
"There may be some relief in the July numbers—commodity prices have come off the boil, at least—but we are a very, very long way from inflation normalizing, and there is no tangible sign of downward momentum," Eric Winograd, an economist at asset manager AB, told the Associated Press.
Energy prices account for nearly half of the month-over-month increase in inflation. Gas prices have risen nearly 60% since last year, per the AP. But even if you exclude volatile food and energy costs, core inflation still rose 0.7% last month, the biggest jump in one year.
The recent data could pressure the Federal Reserve to take an even more aggressive approach to rate hikes, but doing so risks tipping the economy into a recession. "The million dollar question is how hard the Fed has to apply the brakes," Hernan Moscoso Boedo, an economist at the University of Cincinnati, told ABC News.
