Little sign of relief expected in October US inflation data
WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's punishing inflation rate likely kept simmering in October, giving the Federal Reserve little cause to ease up in its drive to slow price increases by steadily raising interest rates.
The Labor Department is expected to report Thursday that consumer prices jumped 8% from 12 months earlier and by a sharp 0.6% from September to October, according to a survey of economists by the data firm FactSet. A separate measure called core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, is expected to have surged 6.5% in the past year and 0.5% from September to October.
Like many other countries, the United States is struggling to control inflation, which is pressuring millions of households and dimming the outlook for the economy as the Fed keeps raising borrowing costs for businesses and consumers. The acceleration of inflation was unleashed by shortages of supplies and labor after the pandemic recession, by a burst of consumer spending fueled by vast federal aid and by cutoffs of food and energy after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
So far this year, the Fed has raised its benchmark interest rate six times in sizable increments, heightening the risk that prohibitively high borrowing rates — for mortgages, auto purchases and other high-cost expenses — will tip the world’s largest economy into recession.
Inflation was near the top of many voters’ minds in the midterm congressional elections that ended Tuesday. Their economic anxieties contributed to the loss of Democratic seats in the House of Representatives, though Republicans failed to score the huge political gains that many had expected.
Even at its current high levels, inflation by some measures has begun to ease and could continue to do so in coming months. Most measures of workers' wages, for example, show that the robust pay...
