The Biden administration is preparing for a Consumer Price Index report released by the Labor Department showing that inflation is “unusually high,” according to the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, one of Wall Street’s favorite ways to measure inflation. The CPI reading for March 2022 is scheduled to be released on Tuesday morning.
“We expect the core CPI inflation for March to rise extraordinarily well due to the price hikes caused by Putin,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
The February reading showed that the benchmark index rose 7.9 percent over the past 12 months, the highest level since 1982, CNBC reported.
Psaki added that the Labor Department’s previous report – which showed prices rising at a significant rate in February – failed to include jump rates in oil and gas costs caused by the Kremlin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The White House says it expects a wider-than-normal variation between the readings due to the abnormal increase in gas prices that occurred last month.
The price of a gallon of regular, unleaded gasoline hit a record high of $4.33 on March 11, according to the American Automobile Association.
That price has since fallen to $4.11 a gallon.
“At times, gasoline prices were more than $1 above pre-Russian levels, so that a roughly 25% increase in fuel prices drove the inflation reading,” Psaki said.
Labor Department data for several months has shown that year-on-year price jumps have reached levels not seen since Ronald Reagan was in the Oval Office.
The February reading showed that the benchmark consumer inflation index rose 7.9 percent over the past 12 months, the highest level since January 1982.
Psaki noted that Biden has taken several steps to help reduce energy costs, including a move to release regarding 1 million barrels of oil per day from the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
