Latest Inflation Report Indicates That Prices Are Still Higher Than a Chinese Spy Balloon

Weird. It was just a week ago that we were assured that the fact that 74 percent of respondents to a Wall Street Journal poll believed inflation was getting worse was unreasonable and wrong, a demonstration of mass delusion and a stubborn refusal to recognize that our wise and empathetic president had single-handedly slain the dragon of inflation.

And yet this morning, the latest consumer price index numbers come in “hotter than expected,” and we learn that “energy prices fed much of gain, rising 5.6 percent on the month, an increase that included a 10.6 percent surge in gasoline,” and that “the jump in headline inflation hit worker paychecks. Real average hourly earnings declined 0.5 percent for the month.”

(I’m told that a national average of four dollars per gallon represents a key psychological threshold for perception of gas prices. Lucky for the Biden administration that the national average is “only” $3.85 per gallon this morning! Sure, that’s a really high price by historical standards, but it’s below that psychological threshold, so I guess we’re all doing fine.)

Even weirder, we learned that inflation outpaced household income gains by a considerable margin yet again last year, which people unable to afford as much as they used to purchase. Hey, I wonder if something like that might leave Americans feeling like inflation was getting worse, not better.

Surging inflation gobbled up household income gains last year, making 2022 the third straight year in which Americans saw their living standards eroded by rising prices and pandemic disruptions.

Americans’ inflation-adjusted median household income fell to $74,580 in 2022, declining 2.3% from the 2021 estimate of $76,330, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. The amount has dropped 4.7% since its peak in 2019.

Why, it’s almost like people’s perceptions about inflation are driven by them going to the store and buying things, and putting gas in their car, and not by trusting experts whose reflexive instinct is to give the Biden administration the benefit of the doubt. (Alas, poor expertise, I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times.)

Get it together, Americans. You’re not supposed to come to conclusions about inflation based upon the prices you’re seeing and paying at the store. You’re supposed to come to conclusions about inflation based upon what experts tell you. They know better than you, that’s what makes them experts.*

*Because there are those out there who are dense or who want to make a bad-faith reading of these words, this is sarcasm.