Inflation Up, Wages Down as Biden Passes the Buck to the Do-Nothing Fed

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Mises Institute

Inflation Up, Wages Down as Biden Passes the Buck to the Do-Nothing Fed

05/11/2022 Ryan McMaken

Inflation is so high in America that we’re now supposed to believe that inflation is “moderating” if it doesn’t go above 8.5 percent. That, at least, was the message in much of the speculation yesterday around what April’s Consumer Price Index inflation numbers would show. Much of the “consensus” was that inflation would come in around 8.0 percent, and that inflation overall had peaked and is therefore moderating. It’s too early to know if inflation has peaked, but one thing if for sure: there’s no reason to celebrate yet another month of wealth-killing inflation at levels not seen in decades. After all, once purchasing power is lost to inflation in our modern economy, it’s gone forever. The central bank will never allow inflation to persist for any sizable period, so that purchasing power will never be returned to dollar holders.

As it is, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s new official inflation numbers today showed an 8.3 percent year-over-year increase for April. That’s the second highest number in forty years, but it does show a small decline from March’s YOY inflation increase of 8.6 percent.