America's Talking - Gas, Shelter Prices Spike Inflation in August

Episode Date: September 17, 2023

Prices spiked more than expected in August. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday released its Consumer Price Index, a key marker of inflation, which showed it rose 0.6% last month alone, the biggest spike this year. That spike was largely driven by an increase in the price of shelter and gasoline. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America and Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today is Casey Harper. The Center Square is Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. How are you, Casey? Doing well, Dan. How are you doing? I am doing well. Thank you. Casey, it's September, 2003, September 15th, to be exact. Truly. And elevated inflation is just not going away. More federal data released this week that shows essentially prices continue to rise at rates higher than the feds want and expect. Tell us about your reporting this week on inflation. Yeah, you're right. It's worth pointing out, like you said, September 15, 2023 because this story feels like a September 15th, 2022 story. You know, this time last year and in the summer, inflation was roaring on prices. were going through the roof. It was really out of control. But then kind of coming into the new year, inflation really slowed down. It was getting to much more manageable level. The prices didn't go down

to return to where they were before this huge spike in inflation, but it had slowed down for the most part to a pretty manageable, more normal level. And a lot of experts declared that inflation was over, right? The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates several times, which of course made new things like buying a home much more expensive and over 7% mortgage rates. Tell me about it. You know, right, right. And so, you know, but the price, you know, that was the price we paid to get inflation down.

At least that's the narrative. That's what, you know, the experts will say. But then in August, we just had this new inflation data come out. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its consumer price index and its producer price index, which just, you know, catalogs a litany of consumer prices and producer prices and found that inflation is spiking again, at least in the month of August. And gas prices are big reason for that. But, you know, it was 0.7% or 0.6% depending on the index.

But that is, you know, basically triple what we've seen in recent months that where inflation was declared over. And, I mean, a 0.7% increase in one month is going to lead you to something like over 7%, maybe nearly 8% for a year. if this pace continued, which is extremely high inflation rate. I mean, 8% increase, 7% increase for a year is kind of what we were seeing at the height of the inflation peak. So basically, August was a month where inflation looked a lot like some of the worst months during the inflation peak. And it raises questions of, is this the future? Is this an anomaly? Our gas price is going to keep going up. And, oh, by the way, we're all these federal reserve hikes that nearly destroyed the banking sector and made it very difficult to buy a house. Were they worth it? if here we are just a few months later and inflation is back to this very high level. Yeah, and Americans are feeling it. And they have been feeling it for a couple of years now. Last month, when we released the Center Square's voters voice poll, 2,500 registered voters across the country, huge sample size. Inflation was their top issue. We also reported this week that Americans essentially are bringing home less money because of inflation. The U.S. Census Bureau

release data this week that says a medium household income fell in 2022 compared to 2021. Real median household income fell fell by 2.3% from $76,000 to $74,000 in 2022. That means consumers, American families, can buy less. The value of their dollar has dropped of the income that they take in because of these soaring prices. and, you know, we're just about a year, a little bit over a year away from a major presidential election, a major congressional election. And I think the Biden administration was hoping that this elevated inflation was going away to heading into an election year. But if this continues to linger, that's going to be on Americans' minds when they go to the polls next year.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's been a top priority for Biden. It's being the biggest thorn and aside. And remember, Dan, Congress passed the influence. inflation reduction act and spent, you know, billions of billions of taxpayer dollars allegedly to reduce inflation. And here we are. So was that, you know, just a failure? There's another question. You know, another report from the National Federation of Independent Business surveyed small business owners and found that, you know, small business owners are, their economic optimism has declined in the month of August. And the number one issue they cite is concerns about inflation.

And I think they're a really good metric to keep up with because who knows more, you know, what the economy, who's more sensitive to the changes in the economy than a small business owner who has tight margins and has to make ends meet and is very sensitive to small changes in the cost of their goods or, you know, where they purchase things from. So what they're seeing is, you know, making them less optimistic and more concerned about their number one concern, which is inflation. We report at the center square.com on these consumer price index data releases, producer price index releases, with the cost of gas and everything else on the rise, that impacts the economy, of course, because Americans just spend less. We'll continue to follow your coverage, Casey, of inflation at the center square.com, but we are out of time. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at the center square.com for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McAulb. Please subscribe. Thank you for listening.