() — What a difference a year makes!
US annual inflation slowed to 3% last month, according to the latest consumer price index released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That’s a sharp cooldown from June of last year, when inflation soared to 9.1%, the fastest annual rate since November 1981, a time when Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” made its way to the top. top of the charts.
It is the twelfth consecutive month that annual inflation, measured by the CPI, has slowed. The annual rate dipped from 4% in May and fell slightly below economists’ expectations for a 3.1% rise, according to Refinitiv.
Housing costs, which is largely a measure of rental leases as the implied rental value of owner-occupied properties, accounted for 70% of the June increase, according to the BLS.
On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.2%, a cooler reading than the 0.4% rise seen in May, according to the report.
Since March 2022, the Federal Reserve has implemented 10 consecutive interest rate hikes to rein in inflation, finally hitting the pause button last month. The Fed is widely expected to raise rates by another quarter point when it meets later this month.
Core inflation also cooled. The core CPI index, which excludes the volatile food and energy categories, rose 4.8% in the 12 months ending in June. That’s a retracement from the 5.3% rate in May and the 5% forecast by economists.
As of May, the core CPI rose 0.2%, a cooler monthly rate than the 0.4% seen in May.
