WASHINGTON • Sky-high US inflation may finally be approaching a peak as global economic growth sputters and oil and other commodity prices plunge. Now the focus is shifting to how fast and far it will retreat.
Welcome to round two in the battle of duelling narratives on the cost of living.
"We are going to see inflation decline," said Mr Jeffrey Rosenberg, senior portfolio manager for systematic multi-strategy at BlackRock. "But to what level?"
In round one last year, Team Transitory - captained in effect by United States Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell - was routed as inflation soared higher and proved more stubborn than it expected. Now it is betting on a substantial decline in price pressures occurring without all that much damage done to the economy or the robust labour market.
On the other side, some of the same analysts who sounded the alarm about climbing prices last year are cautioning that Mr Powell and company may again be too optimistic. They are warning that inflation could prove sticky and that it may take an economic contraction and large job losses to bring it down dramatically.
"We are not likely to get out of this excess inflation situation without a recession," said former Treasury secretary and Bloomberg contributor Lawrence Summers, who was outspoken in criticising the Fed's inflation call last year.
"We should anticipate something in the range of a couple of years with unemployment in the 6 per cent or above range," he added.
In contrast, Fed policymakers in June saw joblessness rising to 4.1 per cent in 2024 - just above the level they consider maximum employment - as inflation decelerated to close to their 2 per cent target. The latest jobs report, out last Friday, showed that unemployment slipped to 3.5 per cent last month - matching the lowest level since 1969 - as payrolls rose a whopping 528,000.
The July consumer price index (CPI) report, due tomorrow, may have elements supporting both teams. The CPI probably rose 8.7 per cent from a year before, down from a four-decade-high gain of 9.1 per cent in June, thanks in large part to tumbling petrol prices, the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey shows. But after stripping out food and energy costs, annual inflation is seen picking up to 6.1 per cent from 5.9 per cent.
One big wild card in the inflation outlook: energy prices, which remain subject to the vagaries of geopolitics, from the Russia-Ukraine war to the combustible Middle East.
Here are some of the forces that will be pushing and pulling on inflation in the coming months:
Partly in response to ebbing global demand, prices for a wide range of commodities - from oil to copper to wheat - have plunged. Also helping to ease cost pressures: a slow untangling of snarled supply chains.
After stripping out food and energy costs, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index will be rising at a year-on-year rate of below 2 per cent in the middle of next year, versus 4.8 per cent now, according to UBS Group's chief US economist Jonathan Pingle. The PCE gauge is the inflation measure used by the Fed in its forecasts, and it targets a 2 per cent rate over time.
"We are expecting a fair amount of goods disinflation," Mr Pingle said.
Skyrocketing rents have played a big role in the surge in consumer price inflation this year and will probably continue to do so for a while.
But the super-rapid rise is topping out, and that should show through in the CPI next year.
The high demand for living arrangements suited to working from home is easing with receding concerns about Covid-19. Soaring inflation has itself spurred renters to hold out for deals, choose more affordable neighbourhoods and bring in roommates to save money, according to rental real estate platform Zumper.
This is probably the biggest reason why inflation may prove more entrenched than the optimists expect. Labour costs are by far the biggest expense for many businesses, especially in the service sector.
With the jobs market still tight - there are 1.8 job vacancies for every person unemployed - companies are being forced to pay up to get the talent they need. To keep their profits up, firms would then need to pass along the added labour costs to consumers in the form of higher prices.
While the inflation jump was initially confined to a few areas like used and new cars, it is now spreading throughout the economy, including to areas like medical care, where prices typically do not change that frequently.
Once such so-called sticky prices accelerate, they tend to keep rising at that pace, said Mr Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at Dreyfus and Mellon and a former Fed official.
Mr Reinhart sees the economy falling into a recession towards the end of this year that lifts unemployment to about 6 per cent, but ultimately leaves inflation on the Fed's favourite price gauge above 3 per cent.
But in the battle over inflation narratives, there is one big difference between rounds one and two.
Mr Powell and his colleagues are no longer counting on inflation just to come down on its own. They are actively battling against it, raising interest rates to slow the economy and return price gains to their 2 per cent goal.
BLOOMBERG
