Inflation soared over the past year at its highest rate in four decades, hammering American consumers, wiping out pay raises and reinforcing the Federal Reserve’s decision to begin raising borrowing rates across the economy.
The Labor Department said Thursday that consumer prices jumped 7.5% last month compared with a year earlier, the steepest year-over-year increase since February 1982.
When measured from December to January, inflation was 0.6%, the same as the previous month and more than economists had expected. Prices rose 0.7% from October to November and 0.9% from September to October.
