Image courtesy Yahoo FinanceU.S. inflation accelerated in January, with prices across a wide range of goods and services soaring further amid lingering shortages and supply chain disruptions.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday morning registered a 7.5 percent annual gain in January. Consensus economists were looking for a 7.3 percent rise, according to Bloomberg data. This represented the fastest rise since 1982, as well as an acceleration from the 7 percent year-over-year increase seen in December.
On a month-over-month basis, consumer price increased by 0.6 percent, matching December’s rate.
Contributions to the headline jump in inflation were broad-based, reflecting widespread price pressures still reverberating across the recovering economy.
Energy prices remained a key contributor to the overall CPI and were up by 27 percent on a year-over-year basis in January. Within energy, fuel oil prices jumped 9.5 percent on a monthly basis, tracking the rise in crude oil prices, which rallied to a seven-year high at the beginning of the year. Electricity prices also jumped by a pronounced 4.2 percent on a month-over-month basis.
But even excluding more volatile food and energy prices, the so-called core CPI rose by 6 percent in January over last year, also marking the biggest jump since 1982. The core CPI had risen by 5.5 percent in December.
Click here to read the full story from Emily McCormick at Yahoo Finance.
