CONSUMER PRICE INDEX
• Consumer prices posted an 8.5% year-over-year increase through March, its fastest annual pace since
December 1981, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Month-over-month, prices rose 1.2%.
• Energy continues to place the most upward pressure on prices, rising by 32.0% since March 2021. The
impact of the Russia-Ukraine War and the ratcheting-up of Western sanctions on Russian oil exports in
the past several weeks saw energy prices rise by 11.0% month-over-month in March— dwarfing recent
months of data.
• Food prices for American consumers also continue to rise, posting a 1.0% rise for the second consecutive month. This threshold has only been reached twice since 1990— during the height of the
Great Financial Crisis and at the pandemic’s onset in April 2020.
• Prices excluding food and energy have climbed by 6.5% over the past 12-months but saw a noteworthy
the slowdown in upward movement during March, rising by just 0.3% in the month after five-consecutive
months of +0.5% increases
