The Shadow
The Consumer Price Index, a broad measure of everyday goods and services related to the cost of living, has seen rapid rises in the cost of living: 7.6% in April, 8.6% in May and 9.1% in June.
Higher costs for food, rent, gas, diesel fuel, airline tickets, fertilizer, used automobiles and household items have outpaced raises in wages, rendering workers’ paychecks to be anemic in that the average pay raises in the U.S. have not kept up with the inflation rate.
Consequently, the U.S. dollar’s purchasing power has been reduced.
Consumers can now buy less with more. That is the bottom line.
Inflation has kept increasing during President Joe Biden’s time in office, soaring from less than 2% when he took office to the current 41-year high. The Biden Administration blames high inflation on COVID-19 and Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Early on during the Biden Administration, government officials called inflation “transitory.”
Janet Yellen, head of the Federal Reserve, joined in the chorus of those forecasting that inflation was a temporary situation that would not last long. She has since admitted that she got it wrong.
At the end of each month, the yearly inflation rate is determined and published, and the past three months have resulted in the highest yearly inflation rates since those recorded in 1981.
Republicans blame excessive spending by the federal government that flooded the marketplace with COVID-19 relief funds and the reversal of key energy policies that have thwarted the energy production of fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil.
While inflation has run rampant in other countries as well, the new jobs created during the Biden Administration has prompted many pundits to point out that a robust economy has been achieved by the increase in jobs.
However, the number of jobs in the U.S. lags behind the number of jobs that were reported prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and 350 thousand workers who have dropped out of the workforce skew the unemployment numbers shown according to some Republican leaders.
Delays in the supply chain combined with rising prices of diesel fuel and gas have contributed greatly to inflation and resulted in shortages, baby formula for instance.
While prices at the pump have dropped from an all-time high recently, the national average for one gallon of regular gas remains at $4.06.9 compared to $2.39.9 per gallon of regular gas the day before President Biden took office on Jan. 20, 2021.
