After the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its March Consumer Price Index reporting that prices surged further by 8.5 percent from the previous year, the highest increase in 40 years, Ways and Means Republican Leader Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) issued the following statement:

“Inflation is raging and getting worse. Workers and families are taking another big pay cut, with $5,700 in lost wages on average thanks to President Biden’s failed leadership. More and more Americans feel financially worse off today than at the height of the Covid pandemic.

“For President Biden, who mistakenly denied record-high inflation and later denied the crippling worker shortage, what does it take beyond today’s devastating inflation report to admit America is in a wage-price spiral that is worsening each month? Denial, as we’ve learned under this Administration, is not an economic strategy.”

Key Background:

• The report showed that inflation continued to accelerate, rising 8.5 percent for the 12 months ending March, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending December 1981. Increases in the indexes for gasoline, shelter, and food were the largest contributors.
• President Biden said in December (November’s CPI Report) that inflation peaked. At that time, inflation was at 6.8 percent.
• A recent Wall Street Journal survey found that people with the lowest incomes “were most likely to report major financial challenges from inflation. Almost half with incomes of less than $60,000 reported major financial strain, while just 13 percent of those making $150,000 or more did so.”
• More Americans reported feeling financially worse off than a year ago, compared to the height of the pandemic, according to the New York Federal Reserve Bank’s March Survey of Consumer Expectations. Expectations of higher inflation over the next year are now more than double its historical average.
• Deutcshe Bank is forecasting a recession and a CNBC poll found that 81 percent of Americans think the economy will be in a recession in 2022.