Americans continued to struggle with crippling inflation rates in January, with new data showing consumer prices jumped 7.5% compared to the same period last year -the biggest bump in 40 years.
“The consumer price index rose 7.5% in January from a year ago, according to a new Labor Department report released Thursday, marking the fastest increase since February 1982, when inflation hit 7.6%. The CPI – which measures a bevy of goods ranging from gasoline and health care to groceries and rents – jumped 0.6% in the one-month period from December,” reports Fox News.
“U.S. annual CPI is the highest since 1982, and what’s worse is that this likely isn’t the peak,” said Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors. “Higher-than-expected monthly gains in core CPI indicate continued underlying heat and will do nothing to relieve pressure on the Fed to tighten sharply and urgently.”
“At this point it’s not a question of will they, won’t they – it’s a question of how many hikes we’ll see in 2022, and what the magnitude and pace will be,” added Mike Loewengart, a senior analyst at E*Trade. “Given views on these aspects are all over the map at this point, there is a lot for the market to be uncertain about.”
Read the full report at Fox News.