Republican Senate Conference Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) warned Thursday that high prices “have become entrenched in our economy” after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported prices rose 0.4 percent in September be a bigger jump than expected.
“High prices are not fleeting,” Barrasso said, noting that inflation has risen 13.5 percent since President Biden took office in 2021. “In less than two years, Democrats have taken us from nonexistent inflation to a 40-year record high.”
Economists forecast that the consumer price index (CPI) would rise 0.3 percent.
The stock market fell right after the inflation numbers were released Thursday morning, but then rebounded, with the Dow Industrial Average up 400 points by 11:30 a.m
Core CPI, which excludes energy and food prices, rose 0.6 percent in September for a 6.6 percent annual gain, the highest since 1992.
Meanwhile, workers’ wages fell slightly by 0.1 percent in September.
Republicans used the report to blast Biden and his Democratic allies in hopes of shifting voter focus to inflation rather than abortion in the final weeks leading up to Election Day.
“Too many Americans live the nightmare of choosing between buying gas they can’t afford, buying groceries they can’t afford, and paying energy bills they can’t afford” said Barraso.
The Office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) issued a memo to reporters Thursday morning noting that food prices were down 18 percent, restaurant prices were down 12 percent and energy prices were down 45 percent percent have increased.
Senate Democrats had hoped inflation would peak in the summer and start falling before the midterm election, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.
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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in June 2021 she expected inflation to fall to around 3 per cent by the end of last year, saying she expected this to be driven by “temporary factors”.
But Yellen admitted in June this year that she was wrong.
“I think I was wrong at the time about the path inflation was going to take,” she told CNN in an interview. “There have been unforeseen and large shocks to the economy that have pushed up energy and food prices, and supply shortages that have hit our economy hard, which I didn’t … fully understand at the time.”
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