A new report released Wednesday by the Biden Labor Department shows that inflation has started to budge, if only minimally, in the August report card on the health of the American economy. It comes ahead of next week’s meeting of the Federal Reserve, which is expected to finally begin a series of interest rates cuts in September. But, the report’s data showed a troubling trend in how much consumers continue to pay for their families’ everyday needs.
The post-pandemic spike in U.S. inflation eased further last month as year-over-year price increases reached a three-year low, clearing the way for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates next week.
Wednesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that consumer prices rose 2.5% in August from a year earlier, down from 2.9% in July. It was the fifth straight annual drop and the smallest such increase since February 2021. From July…
