More than a year later, price increases at 40-year peaks have proven to be anything but, so much so that the Fed this week appears ready to hike interest rates by the most since 1994 to quell them.
Updated economic outlooks will signal how aggressive policymakers may be in raising interest rates and whether that could jeopardize an expected record-setting run of low unemployment.
The pandemic and recovery are part of the issue, but the conditions generating the lack of workers existed long before the first COVID-19 infections in the U.S., said Joe Hobot, president and CEO of the American Indian OIC.
The consumer price index increased 0.5% last month after advancing 0.8% in November. In addition to higher rents, consumers also paid more for food, though the 0.5% increase in food prices was less than in recent months.
