As the United States approaches the 2024 elections, in which Joe Biden and Donald Trump may be facing each other in the presidential contest for the second time, positive signs in the economy continue.
In inflation measurements produced by the federal Labor Department, the rate of increase in prices recorded across the 12 months ending in March was the lowest seen in almost two years. It was “the smallest 12-month increase since the period ending May 2021,” the government said. The measurement, showing an even five percent rate of increase in the March numbers, reflects the change in costs seen in March compared to the same month in 2022.
There are several topline numbers produced by this federal department, and promising signs were seen elsewhere. The month-to-month rate of price increase in March was 0.1 percent, down from February’s rate. Excluding food and energy from both the month-to-month and single year rates, there were also drops. The change from the previous month was 0.1 percent smaller than the change in February, meaning prices in those categories rose somewhat slower. Over the same month of the prior year, the rate of increase was also down (by 0.4 percent).
In more specific categories, energy costs are way down, including a 6.4 percent drop in costs for the 12 months ending in March and a drop of 3.5 percent in March just from the prior month. Gas is down 17.4 percent over the prior year’s prices, as of the numbers collected by the Labor Department for March. Elsewhere, the financial authority called the Federal Reserve has continued to pursue interest rate hikes to try and evidently push down demand in an effort to control inflation, although other factors have weighed on the unfolding problem. Delays in the supply chain were a well-publicized factor on the list and were an area of focus for the Biden administration.
Pete Buttigieg, the current Secretary of Transportation, “has a long list of issues he says have continued to be top priorities as public attention faded, like the data sharing pilot program created in the wake of the 2021 supply chain crisis to integrate information between major retailers, trucking companies, shipping companies, ports and labor,” a March CNN profile said. The realities of what has been recorded in the United States in recent months and years is in utterly stark contrast with the predictions of doom with which Trump remains obsessed as he runs again.
Image: Gage Skidmore/ Creative Commons
