The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has released their Consumer Price Index for May and it’s painted an ugly picture as it shows inflation is hitting Americans hard in the pocketbooks.
While it’s little surprise the gasoline index jumped 4.1%, there are some interesting developments on the automotive side of things. In particular, the used car and truck index climbed 1.8% in May.
That’s the first increase in three months as the index fell 0.2% in February, 3.8% in March, and 0.4% in April. Those drops provided some much needed relief for used car buyers, but it appears the reprieve was short-lived. The bad news doesn’t end there as the used vehicle index has skyrocketed 16.1% in the past year, before seasonal adjustment.
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On the new car side, the index continued to climb as May saw a 1.0% increase. That’s slightly less than in April, but the index has climbed every month since November with the exception of January when things were flat. Given this, it’s not surprising that the new car index has climbed 12.6% over the past year.
In their release, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said “While almost all major components increased over the month, the largest contributors were the indexes for shelter, airline fares, used cars and trucks, and new vehicles.” The government also noted, “The all items index increased 8.6 percent for the 12 months ending May, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending December 1981.”
So what does all this mean? Americans are paying more for just about everything be it cars, gas or food. The latter is especially noteworthy as the government revealed, “The food index increased 10.1 percent for the 12-months ending May, the first increase of 10 percent or more” since March 1981.
