Calculated risk: Year-on-year inflation rates: services, goods, housing

by Calculated Risk August 14, 2024 8:49 AM

Here are some indicators of inflation:

The first chart is where Fed Chairman Powell mentioned that services, excluding residential rent, were up about 8% year over year. That number has declined and is now up 4.6% year over year.

Click on the graph to enlarge the image.

This chart shows year-over-year price changes through July 2024 for services and services excluding shelter rent.

The second chart shows that commodity prices began to rise year-over-year in 2020 and accelerated in 2021 due to both strong demand and supply chain disruptions.

Durable goods were down -4.1% y/y as of July 2024, down from -4.1% y/y in June.

Commodities excluding food and energy products were down 1.7% year-on-year in July, unchanged from -1.7% year-on-year in June.

Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in housing from the CPI report (through July) and housing from the PCE report (through June).

Shelters increased 5.0% in July compared to a year ago.Down from 5.1% in June. Housing (PCE) rose 5.3% year-over-year in June, down from 5.5% in May.

The BLS noted that “the housing index increased 0.4 percent in July, accounting for nearly 90 percent of the monthly increase in the overall index.”

This is still catching up with personal data.

Core CPI, excluding housing, rose 1.8% year-on-year in July, unchanged from 1.8% in June.