July inflation report likely to show prices climbed for the first time in a year
Former White House economist Kevin Hassett shares what to expect ahead of the release of July's CPI on 'The Evening Edit.'
A high-stakes inflation report due Thursday expects to show that price pressures within the economy heated in July for the first time in more than a year.
Economists expect the consumer price index, which measures a range of goods that includes gasoline, health care, groceries and rent, to show that monthly prices rose 3.3% in July, above the 3% increase recorded the previous month. It would mark the first annual increase in consumer prices since June 2022, when the gauge peaked at a rate 9.1%.
«It’s going to go up. I think everyone is pretty much agreed on that,» Robert Frick, corporate economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union, told FOX Business. «The problem is it’s going to stay up for a while, maybe through this year and into next year.»
A FED PAUSE LIKELY WON’T HELP STRUGGLING CONSUMERS
On a monthly basis, inflation is projected to have climbed 0.2%, the same as June.
There is a «broad spectrum» of items and services keeping inflation uncomfortably high, including housing and rent, medical and auto insurance, gasoline and certain grocery items, according to Frick.
«It's going to be hard to bring down,» he said. «I just want to underscore that lower-income Americans are really feeling a lot of pressure right now. We cannot think that just because inflation has stalled out that things are better.»
The Federal Reserve is closely watching the report for evidence inflation is finally subsiding as policymakers try to cool the economy with a series of aggressive interest-rate hikes. Officials approved 11 rate increases in the span of just 16 months, lifting the benchmark federal funds rate from
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