Inflation remained stubbornly high last month, a sign that price increases persist despite a record pace of rate hikes from the Federal Reserve over the past year and a half.
The consumer-price index climbed 3.2 percent in July from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Thursday, up from a three percent annual rise in June. This was the first increase in the annual rate of inflation since June 2022.
Inflation has slowed sharply from the recent peak of 9.1 percent in June 2022, when gasoline prices hit an average of $5 per gallon, food prices soared 10.4 percent, and prices of new cars were up 11.4 percent.
