More good news and 'Too Late' Jerome is still not lowering rates.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/anything-actually-gotten-more-expensive-090003116.html
Predictions from mainstream economists were dire after President Donald Trump launched his tariff campaign just a couple weeks after he began his second term in office: Prices would rise — sharply — they said, reigniting an inflation crisis that tens of millions of Americans had elected him to solve.
But that massive, tariff-induced inflation spike hasn’t materialized. Not even close.
Consumer prices rose just 2.4%, annually, last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was less than economists had expected, and only slightly higher than the 2.3% rate in April, which was the US economy’s lowest inflation since February 2021. According to the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index most closely followed by the Federal Reserve, core inflation — which strips out volatile items like food and gas prices — fell to 2.5% in April. That was the lowest reading since March 2021.
That’s a far cry from what economists and consumers have predicted. Month after month, inflation has fallen short of Wall Street’s expectations, as American businesses said they would be forced to hike prices as a result of historically high tariffs.
America’s effective tariff rate is now 14.1%, according to Fitch Ratings, up from 2.3% last year. That means Trump raised taxes on imported goods by nearly 12 percentage points in 2025. Economists expected substantial inflation increases as a result.
Still, tariffs through mid-June haven’t caused inflation to spike. Love tariffs or hate them, there’s no denying inflation is lower now than when Trump took office.
Research firm Telsey Advisory Group, which has been tracking the prices of 80 select consumer items across a wide variety of retail categories, reported this week that just 19 products it has tracked have gained in price since mid-April — and 16 items’ prices fell. Similarly, the New York Times’ Wirecutter, which recommends consumer products, tracked the prices for 40 of its top picks over the course of two months and found this week that the vast majority didn’t change price at all: 10 gained in price and only half of those gained more than 7%.
Even autos, many of which are subject to a 25% tariff, plus a tariff of up to 25% on some imported auto parts, haven’t gained in price — they’ve fallen. New car prices fell 0.2% in May, according to car-buying research site Edmunds, and they rose only 2.5% compared to the pre-tariff period in March. Both new and used car prices fell in May, according to the BLS’ Consumer Price Index.
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