A shopper in Greenville, New York, on April 30, 2023.
Robert Nickelsberg | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Since the CPI reading was a positive number in April, it means consumers didn’t see prices falling, in a broad sense. But it shows that the rate at which they’re rising has slowed significantly from the 9.1% peak in June 2022.
Policymakers aim to keep inflation at about 2% a year. It may take another year or so to reach that target, but “we’re definitively headed in that direction,” Zandi said.
Where consumers saw prices fall in April
Consumers saw average prices decline outright in April in certain categories.
Grocery prices, for example, retreated by 0.2% during the month, following a 0.3% decrease in March — a trend that should continue as supply chains continue to normalize, as do costs for labor and diesel (a key input for transportation from farm to shelf), economists said.
Monthly prices also declined for airline fares, new cars, hotels, and household energy (like electricity, fuel oil and utility gas service), among others.
Where consumers saw prices rise in April
On the flip side, notable increases in monthly prices occurred in categories like shelter, used cars and trucks, motor vehicle insurance, recreation and personal care, according to the BLS.
Gasoline prices also jumped 3% in April relative to March, though are down 12% in the last 12 months.
Housing — the largest component of the average household’s budget — was the largest contributor to inflation in April, the BLS said. Shelter costs rose 0.4% in April relative to the prior month, a decrease from 0.6% in March.
However, average rents have moderated or even decreased over the past six months — a trend that will soon be reflected in lower inflation readings for shelter, since those price dynamics typically take several months to feed through into federal data, economists said.
“It looks like inflation in the [shelter] category has peaked,” Andrew Hunter, senior U.S. economist at Capital…
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