MIAMI– Sustained high inflation in the United States reduces the prospect of an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve, the US Central Bank, at its June meeting.
Since 2023, analysts aligned with the White House and the mainstream left-wing press in the United States have been pushing for interest rates to drop and thus make it appear that Joe Biden’s chaotic economic policies in the election year have been beneficial. In reality they have been the complete opposite.
Consumer prices supposedly rose to 3.5% in March, up from 3.2% in February. But the figures given by the Federal Reserve and the Department of Labor in the last 14 months do not match reality.
Consumers right now, with the exception of gasoline (which is also not cheap), pay the same prices as at the inflation peak of 2022, and many products are even more expensive now.
The current average price of gasoline in the US exceeds $3.40 per regular gallon, while the value of food, housing, construction materials, insurance, vehicles, clothing, furniture, household appliances and other equipment has skyrocketed in the last two years.
For these reasons, independent and conservative experts do not agree with the data offered by the Biden government on inflation.
Core inflation, which excludes the most volatile elements, such as energy and food, leaves Biden government specialists disappointed: it supposedly remained unchanged in 12 months, at 3.8%, when the market expected it to continue moderating. The same occurs with the monthly measurement, which stood at 0.4%.
The aforementioned “cuts”
“We can say goodbye to a rate cut (interest) in June. (…) The lack of progress towards 2% (which is the central bank’s annual inflation goal) is now the trend,” he summarized in a statement. notes Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.
“There is no improvement. We are going in the wrong direction (…). The main problem points persist,” he emphasized.
Inflation continues to be pressured by gasoline, housing and transportation prices. On the other hand, food prices, whose evolution is particularly sensitive for consumers, remained unchanged for the second consecutive month, but after an unprecedented increase for three years.
“The latest data support the hypothesis of a patient approach to monetary policy” by the Federal Reserve, which means that a rate cut is not “imminent,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief economist of the Federal Reserve. HFE.
Now, nearly 77% of analysts expect rates to remain at their current levels during the Fed’s June meeting.
The evolution of prices, created in 2021 by the Biden administration, is a central issue for the presidential elections in which former President Donald Trump seeks the White House.
Now Biden, suffocated for two years by the rejection of his failed policies, desperately asks companies to use their “record profits to lower prices.” Too late.
For three years, American voters have suffered inflation unprecedented in the country’s history, which is heading for four consecutive years.
These inflationary levels have meant the loss of homes, of the traditional standard of living of Americans when more than 64% do not have enough salary to make ends meet.
The Fed keeps its rates at their highest levels in more than 20 years, in a narrow range of 5.25% to 5.50%.
The Central Bank and its president, Jerome Powell, have indicated that they hope to begin easing their monetary policy this year. But in recent days, its main leaders have begun to qualify this possibility.
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Source: With information from AFP and AP.
