Inflation roars as Biden fiddles | Eastern NC Now

Elections have consequences.  Americans are being hit with the highest rate of inflation on record, led by gasoline prices.  Inflation is a hidden tax, and as such is a drag on economic recovery.  The Biden Administration does not seem to care.  But poor and middle class workers as well as those on fixed incomes are hurt the most.

The Daily Mail.co.uk  recently reported:

Wholesale prices in the U.S. increased at their fastest annual rate ever in May, driven by rising food prices, as soaring inflation threatens to derail the post-pandemic economic recovery.

The producer price index, which measures inflation pressure before it reaches consumers, rose 0.8 percent in May for an annual gain of 6.6 percent, the biggest jump since annual data was first compiled in 2010, the Labor Department said Tuesday.

The annual gain is somewhat skewed by a 'base effect' from last year's data, when prices plunged early in the pandemic, but nevertheless offers another worrying signal to consumers that their dollars won't stretch as far as they used to. 

May's 0.8 percent gain in wholesale prices followed a 0.6 percent increase in April and a 1 percent jump in March. 

Nearly 60 percent of the wholesale price increase from May reflected a 1.5 percent jump in prices for goods. Prices for services rose by 0.6 percent. 

Food prices jumped a sizable 2.6 percent with the cost of beef and veal rising, though the cost of fresh fruits declined. Energy costs rose 2.2 percent, reversing a 2.4 percent drop in April.

Core wholesale inflation, which excludes volatile categories such as food and energy, rose 0.7 percent in May, the same as April, while core inflation rose 5.3 percent over the past 12 months, the largest gain on records going back to 2014. 

Last week, the U.S. reported that consumer prices rose 0.6 percent in May with prices over the past year surging by 5 percent, the biggest 12-month gain since the Great Recession in 2008.

Analysts said that the big jump in wholesale prices following the sizable gain in consumer prices underscores the current upward movement in inflation.