Prices For Consumers Continued To Rise Last Month As Inflation Crisis Continues

Prices continued to rise last month as the inflation crisis that originated under President Biden continued.

According to a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices “rose 0.1 percent in November on a seasonally adjusted basis, after increasing 0.4 percent in October.” Over the last year, prices rose 7.1 percent before seasonal adjustment, the report said.

While inflation numbers last month were slightly better than economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting, the 7.1 percent annual rate is still far higher than the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent.

Due to the sky-high annual inflation rate, the real earnings of Americans have decreased sharply over the last year, according to a separate report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Real average hourly earnings decreased 1.9 percent, seasonally adjusted, from November 2021 to November 2022,” the report said. “The change in real average hourly earnings combined with a decrease of 1.1 percent in the average workweek resulted in a 3.0-percent decrease in real average weekly earnings over this period.”

The inflation report comes the same day the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) begins its two-day meeting, during which it will decide whether to further increase interest rates. The FOMC is widely expected to announce a 0.5 percentage point rate increase 0.5 percentage point rate increase.