Prices were 2.6% higher in October than a year earlier, according to the latest Consumer Price Index, released Wednesday. That's a much lower inflation rate than American consumers endured through most of 2022 and 2023, but it's higher than the inflation rate for September, 2.4%.
Shelter prices rose 0.4% in October, accounting for more than half of the uptick in prices overall, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.
Lingering inflation illustrates that the nation's inflation crisis is not over, economists said, and that the Federal Reserve's battle against rising prices must rage on.Inflation had barely registered on America's radar in recent years. But prices spiked in the pandemic, and the annual inflation rate reached a 40-year high of 9.1% in mid-2022. The Fed stepped in, raising interest rates dramatically in 2022 and 2023 to cool the economy. Inflation retreated below 4% in mid-2023, but it still hovers above the 2% target set by federal regulators. (Read More)
