Dr Debesh Roy, Chairman, InsPIRE

The U.S. consumer inflation surged ahead to touch a more than four decades high of 8.6% annual rate in May 2022, due to spiraling energy and food prices. There has been no respite from the upward movement of retail inflation in the US since February 2021, which had a benign reading of 1.7% to 5% in April 2021, followed by a steady 5.3-5.4% during July-September, when the Federal Reserve Chair Mr. Jerome Powell was convinced that inflation was transitory in nature. However, October (6.2%) onwards inflation continued to rise unabated touching a 40-year high in March 2022, followed by a slight drop to 8.3% in April, before rising to 8.6% in May 2022 (see figure below). The core-price index increased 6% in May, down from 6.2% in April. March’s 6.5% rise was the highest rate since August 1982.

High inflationary trend is a downside of…