The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers in Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Ga., increased 1.6 percent from February to April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The index for food declined 0.2 percent, while the energy index increased 6.6 percent. The index for all items less food and energy rose 1.6 percent from February to April.
For the 12 months ending in April, the CPI-U for All Items
increased 6.0 percent. The index for food declined 0.2 percent over the past 12
months, while the energy index rose 30.0 percent. The index for all items less
food and energy increased 5.0 percent.
Considering inflation rates over a 24-month period
While the most recent 12-month increases appear to be large, they come a year after the economy suffered a sharp setback as consumers changed their buying habits and companies saw drop-offs in their business. These resulted in some significant slowdowns in the rate of increase for some inflation measures, while other indexes actually declined over the year. For example, the CPI-U for All Urban Consumers in Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Ga., declined 0.3 percent from April 2019 to April 2020.
Because of the sharp slowdown in the economy in 2020, there
is good reason to consider inflation not over the past 12 months, but over the
past 24 months. In that context, the current inflation rate is in line with
inflation in some prior years.
From April 2019 to April 2021, the Consumer Price Index for
All Urban Consumers in Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Ga., increased 5.6
percent compared to inflation rates of 5.4 percent from 2017 to 2019 and 5.2
percent from 2015 to 2017.
The index for all items less food and energy increased 6.2
percent from 2019 to 2021 compared to inflation rates of 5.1 percent from 2017
to 2019 and 6.9 percent from 2015 to 2017.
Conclusion
While the percentage change over the most recent 12 months
may seem to imply higher rates of inflation in the future, once the impact of lower
price inflation in 2020 is taken into account, the inflation rates over the
most recent 24 months seem in line with past experiences as the economy
recovered from the 2007-2009 recession.
Economists will have to wait until later in 2020 to see if retail
prices continue to increase at the current rate, accelerate, or actually
moderate as the economy recovers from the 2020 downturn.
