Claim: Inflation is rising at the fastest pace in 6 months

Question

This does not seem right, as food and gas prices seem to have declined in the Midwest.

Answer 1

You are correct. Inflation is not rising as rapidly as mentioned in the article you provided. In fact, inflation is slowing down. According to this New York Times article, which reports that "Inflation has slowed on an annual basis for six straight months, dipping to 6.5 percent after peaking at about 9 percent last summer, partly as gas has become cheaper. But the deceleration is true even after volatile food and fuel are stripped out: So-called core consumer prices have climbed 0.3 percent or less for each of the past three months." However, it is important to mention that this this article points out that the future for inflation is currently unknown. Going on forward, there is no clear consensus on where inflation will end up.

Link to Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/23/business/economy/inflation-turning-point.html

Comments

Nice job explaining a complex topic and find a solid source to support your fact-check.

Answer 2

You are correct, inflation is not rising. The inflation rate as of this month is 6.4% which is a decrease from 6 months ago at 8.3%. This information comes from the following source https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi which portrays a graph of the inflation rate over the last year. As we can see from this graph, the inflation rate continues to fall. However, the article seems to be talking about another metric for inflation, the consumer price index, which has grown in the 2023. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/summary-findings/. These are two different metrics and should not be combined.

Answer 3

You're right, it's been increasing at a slower rate.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf

 According to this document, the rate at which it increased this February was the slowest it's gone up since September 2021. Inflation is increasing, but it's been increasing at a slower rate than usual.