The latest data from the U.S. government, released on Wednesday, shows that consumer prices in the country are still going up. This makes it less likely that the Federal Reserve, which is like the country’s money manager, will reduce interest rates soon.
For the past few years, the Federal Reserve has been increasing interest rates to try to stop prices from going up too fast. They want to keep inflation, which is when prices go up, at around two percent every year. But now, prices have been going up faster than that.
The annual consumer price index (CPI), which measures how much prices have gone up over the year, was 3.5 percent in March. This is higher than it was in February. Economists thought prices would only go up by 3.4 percent, so it’s a bit more than expected.
Every month, prices go up a little bit. In March, they went up by 0.4 percent, which is also a bit more than expected. The prices of things like where people live (shelter) and gasoline went up the most.
There’s another measure that doesn’t count the prices of food and energy because they change a lot. This measure still shows prices going up by 3.8 percent, just like in February.
This is important because when prices go up too fast, people might not be able to buy as much with their money. It’s like if you had five dollars and suddenly everything cost more, you couldn’t buy as many things. So, the government wants to make sure prices don’t go up too fast, but they also don’t want to make it hard for people to borrow money, which is what happens when interest rates are too high. So, they have to decide what to do based on the data they have.
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