If your wallet has whiplash from an uncertain economy, here's a bit of welcome news: Inflation eased more than expected last month.
A report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday showed the Consumer Price Index — a measure of average change in prices paid by consumers over time — increased by 0.2% in February, down from a rate of 0.5% in January. Economists had been expecting a 0.3% increase last month.
Core prices, which measure all prices but food and energy, are also at a four-year low, according to The Associated Press.
Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide, described the inflation report as “old news” to Bloomberg.
“There’s no disinflation momentum right now,” she said. She and other experts are “predicting a little bit of a bump up in the coming months because of these tariffs.”
A 10% tariff on imports from China was the only one implemented during the period that covered the inflation data. Trump has since doubled those tariffs, is putting others in place and has threatened more.
The “bump up” will likely be felt by consumers across the nation for goods ranging from groceries to luxury purchases such as automobiles and electronics. Egg prices hit a record high in February as the avian flu continued to infect livestock, and tariffs will likely force companies to pass the extra cost onto customers.
“It does put a lot of businesses like ours in a tough spot,” Ethan Frisch, co-CEO of the New York spice company Burlap & Barrel, told The Associated Press. “We’re going to have to pass along [the cost] to the consumer. We can’t afford to eat that cost ourselves as a small business. And we certainly can’t pass it back to a farmer in central Mexico. So, it’s going to make the product more expensive, which is then in turn going to slow down sales.”
Shares