Business · Axios
Driving the news: The 21.2% surge in gasoline prices in March was the biggest single-month percentage increase in records
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The build-up in inflation has been accompanied by a collapse in Americans' attitudes toward the economy.
Key facts
- The 21.2% surge in gasoline prices in March was the biggest single-month percentage increase in records that date back to the 1960s
- Price pressures were already reaccelerating in the last few months, and that was before the U.S.–Israeli attack on Iran disrupted global energy supplies
- The build-up in inflation has been accompanied by a collapse in Americans' attitudes toward the economy
- Stunning stat: The terrible sentiment number makes more sense if seen as the consequence of a half-decade of price pressures, rather than the latest headlines from the Persian Gulf
Summary
It increasingly looks as if the inflation problem that emerged five years ago wasn't a one-off event, but the defining economic challenge of the decade — and Americans don't like it one bit. Price pressures were already reaccelerating in the last few months, and that was before the U.S.–Israeli attack on Iran disrupted global energy supplies. Since the initial outburst in 2021, economists have taken solace that price spikes could be chalked up to one-time factors: pandemic supply chain snarls, excessive stimulus, the Ukraine war, tariffs and now Iran. But when those seemingly one-off events pile up on top of each other, it no longer looks like a spurt of bad luck, but rather a resetting of prices across the economy. Recent data provides overwhelming evidence of both how persistent 2020s-style inflation has proven to be and how much people hate it.