When Economists and Consumers Agree on Inflation

When it comes to inflation, economists and the rest of us live in very different worlds. But those worlds collided with the release of the consumer price index for March, out this morning from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s the first comprehensive view of what’s happened to prices since the US attack on Iran, and the numbers are eye-popping: Prices across the US economy shot up 0.9% from the previous month—the biggest monthly increase since 2022, and 3.3% from a year ago.

“It’s going to freak people out, because that’s just a huge jump,” says  Gbenga Ajilore, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Typically, says Ajilore, economists tend to focus on so-called core inflation, a measure that strips out food and energy prices. Food and energy tend to be more volatile and can distract from broader inflationary trends. (That was very much the case in March, which saw gas prices soar 20% from the same month last year, a leap that accounted for three-quarters of the advance in the overall index.)