The Department of Labor in Washington
Source: pa/Ulrich Baumgarten
In order to curb high inflation, the US Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates since the beginning of 2022. Last month, the target of an inflation rate of 2.0 percent came a little closer – now inflation has surprisingly fallen again.
DSurprisingly, inflation in the USA continued to fall. The inflation rate for goods and services increased by only 4.9 percent in April after 5.0 percent in March, the Labor Department announced in Washington on Wednesday. Experts polled by Reuters news agency had expected the reading to be flat after inflation fell a full point in March.
The US Federal Reserve has pushed interest rates from near zero to a range of 5.00 to 5.25 percent since early 2022 in a bid to stem high inflation and cool the overheated labor market. Last month it came just a small step closer to its target of an inflation rate of 2.0 percent. At the same time, it is suffering from stubbornly high core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food prices.
This fell only slightly in April to 5.5 percent after 5.6 percent in March. The influential head of the New York Federal Reserve District, John Williams, has recently not ruled out that that interest rates could rise further – even if the Fed recently signaled its willingness to take a possible pause.
“Everything on shares” is the daily stock exchange shot from the WELT business editorial team. Every morning from 7 a.m. with our financial journalists. For stock market experts and beginners. Subscribe to the podcast at Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music and Deezer. Or directly by RSS-Feed.