On Fox News Wednesday morning, an on-air personality did something unusual: they expressed joy about positive economic news following the publication of the latest Consumer Price Index data.
The Consumer Price Index for July indicated a modest increase of 0.2% compared to the previous month. Steve Doocy introduced a news piece by stating that it aligns with the predictions made by economists. Prices have increased by 2.9% compared to the previous year, which is slightly lower than anticipated.
“This is the lowest since March of 2021, just a month or two after Joe Biden took office,” Doocy added before bringing on guest Taylor Riggs, host of Fox Business’ Big Money Show. “Well, this is really good news for all of us,” Doocy exclaimed, “because we want to pay less.”
Riggs replied:
Yes. So I think the good thing to think about this is prices are rising. They’re just rising at a slower rate than when they were a few years ago, but unfortunately means that your prices are still going up. I think the headline numbers that you pointed out are spot on, but if you strip out the volatile food and energy components, core inflation, what we feel every day is still up about 3.2% year over year. The Fed’s target is 2%. So we are getting closer to the goal. But prices aren’t falling. They’re just rising less quickly than they were. So underneath the surface rent auto insurance, there are some things today that are still rising at a pretty significant pace. But overall, I think you’re right. We can take a little bit of a sigh of relief here with this report.
The 2024 presidential election has been greatly impacted by economic policy, namely the significant increase in inflation rates since the beginning of the epidemic.
