Economists Say Inflation Is Tame; Consumers Aren’t Buying It
But the government index covers a very broad array of goods, including globally produced items such as televisions, phones and personal computers, which have seen big price declines in recent years.
So how often do you buy those big-ticket goods? Probably not as often as you put gas in the car or pick up meat or fruit at the grocery store. And those food and fuel prices are high this summer — far higher than the 2.1 percent inflation rate that the CPI shows.
And the price increases are many times greater than the 2-percent average wage hikes that workers have gotten in the past year.
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