Back in November 2021, when the clerk at my favorite Dollar Tree told me their time-honored “everything-for-one-dollar” pricing strategy was on its deathbed, I had the feeling that inflation was embedded in our economy and no longer “transitory.” Sure enough, in December, the Consumer Price Index grew by more than 7 percent, year-over-year. In January 2022, the increase hit 7.5 percent; and in February almost 8 percent. By then, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen were admitting what Dollar Tree had known before. We have since seen 8.5 percent CPI growth in March and 8.3 percent in April.
Nevertheless, much of what we’re still hearing out of Washington — especially talk of price gouging — is a convenient distraction and a far cry from past leaders’ willingness to listen and address root causes of inflation.
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