US inflation plummets to 'new three-year lows': WSJ

11 September 2024

Inflation was among the many topics that Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump debated on Tuesday night, September 10 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, where the event was hosted by ABC news.

Inflation has often been described as one of Harris' vulnerabilities as a candidate, but the Democratic nominee vigorously defended the Biden Administration's economic record and argued that President Joe Biden was quite proactive in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic problems it created.

The morning after the debate, the Wall Street Journal's David Uberti reported on the state of inflation in the U.S. — stressing that inflation had "eased, in August, to new three-year lows."

Uberti reports, "The consumer-price index climbed 2.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the Labor Department, decreasing from 2.9 percent in July and extending its cooling streak to five months. Core inflation, a measure that excludes volatile food and energy costs, held roughly steady at 3.2 percent. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected overall prices to have risen 2.6 percent from a year ago, as well as a 3.2 percent increase in core prices."

Traders, according to Uberti, have "ramped up bets that" the U.S. Federal Reserve will lower interest rates "next week to kick off a widely anticipated rate-cutting cycle to lower borrowing costs across the economy."

In response to the news on inflation, CNBC's Carl Quintanilla tweeted that the U.S. had its "lowest annual headline inflation rate since Feb 2021."

On X, formerly Twitter, former National Economic Council Deputy Director Bharat Ramamurti posted, "The US has reached the end of the post-COVID global inflation surge. Thanks to Biden-Harris policies, it got through that surge with more economic growth and wage growth than any of its competitors, and with lower unemployment than at any time in the Obama and Bush presidencies."

Ramamurti also tweeted, "Last night, VP Harris offered a vision for building on this recovery: addressing the cost of housing and child care, and promoting entrepreneurship. Trump's plan was the usual trickle-down approach of giant tax cuts for the rich and massive deficits, reigniting inflation."

Read the Wall Street Journal's full report at this link (subscription required).

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