The Labor Department said Thursday that the consumer price index in May rose 5% year over year, hotter than the 4.7% increase that was anticipated. The reading was above last month’s 4.2% print.

Prices jumped 0.6% month over month, quicker than the 0.4% increase that was expected by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.

The annual data has a “base effects” skew due to the decline in prices that occurred at the start of the pandemic.

USED CAR PRICES HIT RECORD HIGH ON MANHEIM WHOLESALE INDEX

Used car and truck prices surged 7.3%, accounting for about one-third of the index’s gain. Food prices, meanwhile, rose 0.4% matching April’s increase. Energy prices were unchanged from April as a decline in gasoline prices was offset by an increase in natural gas and electricity costs.

Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, in May rose 3.8% annually, the most since June 1992. Core prices increased 0.7% month over month, outpacing the 0.4% increase that was expected. The index rose 0.9% in April.

Upward pressure on prices has appeared in wide swaths of the economy as businesses struggle to find materials due to supply chain bottlenecks that occurred as a result of the pandemic. Some businesses are also struggling to fill jobs because supplemental unemployment benefits have encouraged workers to stay home.

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The hot inflation reading comes with the Federal Reserve next week set to hold its June policy meeting. Investors will be paying close attention to the central bank’s comments on when it may start tapering its asset purchase program and begin raising rates.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has said he expects upward pressure on prices to be temporary.

Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/inflation-consumer-price-index-may-2021

The post Consumer prices surge 5% annually, most since August 2008 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The U.S. economy created 379,000 jobs last month as the nation slowly reopens following coronavirus shutdowns.

Economists had predicted job creation of between 150,000 and 200,000. In January, the economy generated 166,000 new jobs.

Most of the jobs came in the leisure and hospitality sector, which includes restaurants, bars, hotels and other entertainment businesses.

The new jobs pushed the unemployment rate down from 6.3% to 6.2%, but some economists say those numbers likely don’t reflect actual unemployment because 4.2 million people have stopped looking for work.

The unemployment rate measures people actively looking for jobs who can’t find one.

While the jobs news is good, 9.5 million jobs don’t exist now that existed last February, and on Thursday, the Labor Department said 18 million Americans were receiving some kind of unemployment benefits in the middle of February.

On Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said a return to “full employment” was “highly unlikely” this year.

Some 6.4% of Americans are not participating in the labor force, rates not seen since the 1970s.

Stocks were mixed on the jobs news.

Source: https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-job-creation-beats-expectations-while-unemployment-remains-above-6

The post US Job Creation Beats Expectations While Unemployment Remains Above 6% first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.