Latest CPI Data: Six Months of Stable Inflation News

By SBE Council at 13 November, 2024, 8:33 pm

by Raymond J. Keating -

According to the latest Consumer Price Index release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation in October registered 0.2 percent.

As noted in the following chart from the BLS report, the last six months have been a more welcome, positive run on inflation.

Indeed, over those past six months, inflation ran at an annualized rate of approximately 1.4 percent.

That compared to the previous six months annualized rate of 3.6 percent. And over the last year, inflation registered 2.6 percent.

In fact, the past six months amount to the best six-month period on inflation since the post-pandemic inflation was ignited in early 2021. (See the following chart.)

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED

As I've noted before, the key players in this story of working to bring inflation under control hasn't been the Fed following misguided monetary policy ideas of manipulating interest rates in the hopes of manipulating economic and/or employment growth in the hopes that this will quiet inflation. That's too many "hopes" based on bad economics.

Instead, this has been a story of private-sector businesses, investors and doing the real work of getting the supply-side of the economy back on track. Of course, guarding against inflation is an ongoing endeavor, and on the policy front, policy changes are needed whereby the Federal Reserve gets serious about reining in the loose money it's been running since 2008, and Congress and the White House get focused on pro-growth policies, such tax and regulatory relief, removing governmental barriers via free trade, and reining in government spending.

Raymond J. Keating is chief economist for the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. His latest books on the economy are The Weekly Economist: 52 Quick Reads to Help You Think Like an Economist , The Weekly Economist II: 52 More Quick Reads to Help You Think Like an Economist and The Weekly Economist III: Another 52 Quick Reads to Help You Think Like an Economist .

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