Rising food and housing costs have hit the lowest-income Americans the hardest in recent years.

Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the cost of living continues to outpace earnings, leaving many Americans struggling to make ends meet.

Progress on inflation should stall this year” as fiscal, immigration and trade policies shift, caution Bank of America economists.

Entering 2025, models from forecasting companies like Trading Economics anticipate inflation rates between 2.4% and 2.9% between the end of 2024 and the start of 2026. Unfortunately, actually predicting inflation can be difficult, as rates can be affected by a variety of factors, including political climates and supply-chain interruptions.

Inflation, as measured by the producer price index, rose three-tenths of a percentage point to 3.3% for the year ending in December, hinting that the economy may not yet have vanquished price pressures.

Economists like me rely on data from federal data collection agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). They provide critical data on

The consumer price index, an inflation gauge, rose 2.9% on an annual basis in December 2024 on the back of higher food and energy prices.

The Consumer Price Index rose 2.9 percent from a year earlier, but a measure of underlying inflation was more encouraging.

And all this productivity is why wage growth keeps beating inflation, said Betsey Stevenson, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan. “Real wage growth has to come from productivity growth. Because we’re doing more with less, we get more in the end,” she said.

The better-than-expected data sent the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average surging more than 700 points, or 1.7%, as investors felt renewed confidence that the Fed will cut rates multiple times this year. In recent trading, fed-fund futures showed the chances of more than one cut rising to 46%, from 35% on Tuesday, according to CME Group data.

Measuring key aspects of a nation’s economy is important, but the metrics used are often misunderstood by many. Quantifying output of goods and services, price levels, and labor use provides

Americans can continue to expect high prices for eggs this year, new estimates show, due to the ongoing avian flu outbreak and inflation.