We turn out to new inflation numbers.
They've just been released and it shows inflation rose by
more than expected in March by .4%,
and it's up 3.5% since this time last year.
ABC News correspondent Elizabeth Schulze is here for more.
So Elizabeth, what is the overall impact of this new
report?
Does it really confirm what many Americans have been feeling
this the squeeze in their wallets,
the cost of groceries? I mean,
everything it does, Morgan. This shows that inflation is stubbornly
high,
and especially when you're looking at a lot of those
everyday expenses for people.
Food prices didn't go up by as much last month,
but they are still high.
Housing prices continue to go up.
Rent was one of the big reasons why prices were
significantly higher.
Or higher than expected in this report.
Same thing goes with gas prices.
We've been seeing those ticking up over the past month.
The other expense here that people are looking at is
services.
So when you think about the things you spend on
your day-to-day life,
medical care, car insurance, those costs that are just monthly
expenses continue to tick up higher and that's one of
the reasons why we're seeing this persistently high inflation.
Obviously that is very frustrating for households at home when
they're looking at their budgets.
But this is also a frustrating report,
Morgan for the Fed because the Federal Reserve have been
hoping to see that this underlying inflation trend was cooling.
That inflation has been coming down enough that as soon
as June it would be able to lower interest rates.
Remember, the Fed started raising interest rates because it wanted
inflation to come down.
That's been happening. But what this report shows that it
is not quite ready to cut those rates yet.
A lot of economists right off the bat here are
saying we had hoped for June.
It's looking like people might have to wait a little
bit,
a little bit longer. And what that means is if
you've been wanting your mortgage rate to come down,
your credit card borrowing costs,
you're probably going to have to wait a little bit
longer.
Morgan. Yeah, you pointed out that frustration that many consumers
are feeling.
But look, is there any hopeful news for consumers here?
Right. I mean, big picture,
this 3 1/2% inflation rate is a lot better than
that 9%
peak that we saw two years ago.
So when you're looking at how much prices are going
up.
The good news is that 3 1/2 isn't as high
as it was a couple years ago.
So prices aren't going up as fast as they were.
And there were a couple of areas in this report
I was trying to find the good news for people.
When you look at car prices,
both used and new cars,
those prices were down over the past month on a
monthly basis.
Airfare was also down. So some of the cost for
travel that we've seen really spiking and those costs have
been really volatile on a monthly basis.
But the problem still kind of that underlying trend with
those day-to-day expenses still high,
the hope is that that will continue to moderate,
but what we've seen is getting down from 9%
inflation. To 3%. That has been progress.
That's what people want to see.
This goal to get back to 2%,
which is the feds target,
is taking a little bit longer than they'd hoped.
And the other thing I just should mention,
Morgan, the stock market, this is a big impact on
Wall Street.
Wall Street's really going to look at this report initially.
This is not good news when you're thinking about what
it might mean for your 401K,
But a lot of to digest in terms of what
this will mean for the stock market if this means
that inflation is going to stick around for longer.
And I know that you're tracking it all.
Elizabeth Schulze, thank you so much.