by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
Housing CPI re-surged in July from the June outlier.
On a month-to-month basis, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Core CPI accelerated in July. Inflation in core services, which accounts for 65% of total CPI, bounced back from the outlier and re-accelerated sharply; food prices ticked up; energy prices stopped dropping; and durable goods prices slowed their historic plunge, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics today.
It’s the historic plunge in durable goods prices that has done the heavy lifting in bringing inflation down this year. But durable goods prices aren’t going to plunge forever from the pandemic spike. Services inflation, though it has come down from the red-hot zone, remains high.