Tag: prices

Americans are Getting Poorer While Prices Keep Going Up

Michigan Star Staff
Shopping

Americans’ real weekly earnings dropped sharply in April and still remain well below their level when President Joe Biden first took office, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Real average weekly earnings fell to $1,191.93 in April, declining by 0.4% in the month and 4.8% compared to the start of Biden’s term in January 2021, according to data calculated by the Daily Caller News Foundation from the BLS. Prices have risen over 19% since Biden first took office and 3.4% in the last year, degrading the value of Americans’ wages.

Read More

Inflation Spiked in February More than Expected

The Center Square
Grocery Shopping

Producer prices spiked last month, another sign of rising inflation in the U.S., according to new federal data.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday released its monthly Producer Price Index, a leading marker of inflation, which showed an increase of 0.6% in February, more than expected.

Read More

U.S. Consumers Face Higher Prices for Goods as Houthis Continue Attacks Against Commercial Vessels

Michigan Star Staff
Couple Shopping

The Houthi attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea are threatening to disrupt U.S. and global markets with delayed shipping times and increased good prices, The Washington Post reported.

The Yemen-based Houthis have launched several attacks since Oct. 7 against vessels in the Red Sea as part of retaliation efforts against Israel and its allies. In an effort to avoid the Houthis, commercial vessels are now taking longer routes to reach their destinations, resulting in delays and higher shipping costs, and ultimately increased prices for consumer goods in the U.S. and across the world, according to the Post.

Read More

Inflation Refuses to Go Away as Prices Stay Elevated

Michigan Star Staff

Inflation ticked slightly down year-over-year in November but continued to remain well above the Federal Reserve’s target, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) release on Tuesday.

The consumer price index (CPI), a broad measure of the prices of everyday goods, increased 3.1% on an annual basis in November, compared to 3.2% in October, according to the BLS. Core CPI, which excludes the volatile categories of energy and food, remained high, rising 4.0% year-over-year in October, compared to 4.0% in October.

Read More

Electricity Prices Jumped More than Double that of Inflation Last Year, Consumer Index Shows

Just the News

Prices for electricity in the United States soared well above overall inflationary levels last year, putting an added squeeze on consumers already reeling from significantly inflated costs of most consumer goods. The Consumer Price Index Summary released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics this month showed the 12-month average price of electricity last month jumping a whopping 14.3 percent, more than double the 6.5 percent of overall price increases.

Read More

Biden Touts Falling Food Prices When They Are Actually Rising

The Center Square

President Joe Biden touted falling food prices Thursday, but the latest federal data shows the price of food is actually on the rise and has been for more than a year. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released new inflation data Thursday that showed the overall consumer price index dropped 0.1%, driven in part by a decrease in energy prices.

Read More

Key Inflation Metric Doubles Expectations with Core Prices Still High

Michigan Star Staff

Wholesale inflation exceeded economists’ expectations year-over-year in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Producer Price Index (PPI), with core prices staying high despite efforts from the Federal Reserve to rein in inflation.

The index increased 0.4% for the month, while the Dow Jones had only estimated a 0.2% gain; prices rose 8.5% year-on-year for final demand goods and services, down from 8.7% in August but higher than expectations of an 8.4% increase, according to the BLS. Final demand prices not including food and energy, or “core” prices, rose 7.2% year-on-year in September.

Read More

Inflation Slowed in April, but Prices Continued Their Steady Increase

The Center Square

Inflation continued its steady rise in April, when the Consumer Price Index increased 8.3% over last year, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For the month, the CPI rose 0.3%. That’s down from the 1.2% spike in March, but higher than analysts expected. The 8.3% increase over last year remains near 40-year highs, the bureau reported.

Read More

Hospitals Are Getting Away with Ignoring Price Transparency Rules, Experts Say

Michigan Star Staff

Many hospitals are not complying with laws requiring them to make their healthcare prices publicly available, according to multiple reports, and the Biden administration has so far refrained from issuing penalties.

The Hospital Price Transparency rule, which went into effect Jan. 1, 2021, is designed to promote competition in healthcare markets by requiring hospitals to post their prices, so that consumers can compare and shop between hospitals. The law mandates hospitals to post their pricing data “as a comprehensive machine-readable file with all items and services” as well as “in a display of shoppable services in a consumer-friendly format.”

However, according to recent reports, many hospitals have yet to comply with the rules a year after they have been in effect. An investigation by The Wall Street Journal last week found that many of the nation’s largest hospital chains were not complying with the new rules.

Read More

Commentary: Biden Is Making Russia Great Again

Michigan Star Staff

Under former President Donald J. Trump, for the first time in decades, the United States became a net exporter of natural gas and oil. That helped to keep global energy prices relatively low. It also gave the United States leverage over the international system in ways it had not enjoyed since before the 1970s.

Alas, the propagation of the novel coronavirus from Wuhan, China, along with the ceaseless lies of the Western “mainstream” media made such a prosperous and secure future under Trump an impossibility.

In the eight months since assuming office under a cloud of controversy, Joe Biden has done more to harm America’s inherent strategic advantages in the global energy market than any U.S. rival could have imagined. Under Biden, the United States has gone from being a net exporter of global energy to begging the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to produce more oil for the world to consume.

Read More

Commentary: Massive Government Spending Has Caused High Inflation Levels and a Weakening U.S. Dollar

Michigan Star Staff
$100 bills in rubber bands

Inflation is up 4.92 percent the past 12 months as of May, the most since July 2008’s 5.5 percent, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, amid a torrent of trillions of dollars of government spending, Federal Reserve money printing and a weakening dollar combined with the continued economic rebound led by reopening businesses from the 2020 Covid lockdowns.

The past three months alone, inflation has grown at an accelerated rate of 2 percent combined. If that trend were to hold up for the rest of the year, inflation would come closer to 8 percent.

In the month of May, price jumps in fuel oil at 2.1 percent and piped gas service at 1.7 percent offset a 0.7 percent drop in gasoline prices. In addition, new car prices grew 1.6 percent. Used cars and trucks grew at 7.3 percent again after a 10 percent jump in April. Apparel jumped 1.2 percent. And transportation services grew 1.5 percent after a 2.9 percent jump in April.

Read More