Is America’s inflationary fever breaking?

Its labour market remains too hot for comfort

A welder preparing the Battleship Texas for its upcoming move to a dry dock — Image: Getty Images

Jul 13th 2023|Washington, DC

Writing out economic figures to the third decimal place is normally an exercise in spurious precision. But after two years of uncomfortably high inflation, price statistics are studied in minute detail. The unrounded month-on-month increase in America’s core inflation (minus volatile food and energy costs) in June was 0.158%, even more pleasing for officials than the 0.2% rounded increase, which itself was the slowest pace in more than two years. However many decimal places, the question remains the same. Is America’s inflationary fever finally breaking?

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Powell’s dilemma”