Inflation in the United States is up almost 7% over the past year, the Labor Department said in its consumer prices report on Friday — which is the highest year-to-year gain in almost four decades.

The Consumer Prices Index for November was up 0.8% over October, the department said. The index measures the cost of a variety of goods in the United States.

Over the past 12 months, prices are up 6.8%, the report said. That’s the highest year-to-year rise since 1982. The rise was slightly more than most analysts expected.

Minus food and energy, prices were up 0.5% for November and 4.9% over the 12-month period.

November was the sixth straight month in which year-to-year inflation has risen by at least 5%.

Again, the cost of energy drove the increase. The energy index is up 33% over November 2020. Gasoline alone was up 58.1% over that time. Food prices are up 6.1% over a year ago.

The department said Friday that the energy and food components saw the fastest 12-month increase since at least 2008.

“[The figures] further challenge the Fed to not only accelerate tapering, which is kind of a given at this point but probably consider hiking in the early part of next year,” Tom Graff, head of fixed income at Brown Advisory, told CNBC.

Copyright 2021 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

—-

This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.

Rating: 3.7/5. From 10 votes.
Please wait...