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U.S. inflation has cooled to its lowest number in three years. PHOTO/GETTY IMAGES
US inflation drops to lowest number since 2021
The Bureau of Labor released on Thursday September’s inflation number, revealing that the average U.S. inflation rate over the past 12 months has dropped to 2.4%, the lowest since February 2021.
Keystone Research Center (KRC) economist and executive director Stephen Herzenberg said the Bureau of Labor’s announcement continues the “steady stream of positive news” on the economy and its impact on Pennsylvania.
“A week ago, KRC highlighted the positive news on unemployment, pointing out that the unemployment rate in every one of Pennsylvania’s counties is below the level before the pandemic,” Herzenberg said in a statement. “We also released an online interactive map displaying that unemployment has fallen especially in rural and western Pennsylvania, overlapping the more conservative parts of the state.
“The sum of inflation and unemployment, which Ronald Reagan rechristened the ‘Misery Index,’ is now close to as low as it has been in Pennsylvania in 50 years. If you add the monthly Pennsylvania unemployment rate to the average inflation over the past 12 months, this index is now 5.9, compared to an average of 6.9 in the three months prior to the pandemic.”
Herzenberg noted that from January 1976 to August 2024, the misery index was lowest in several months of 2015, when it equaled 5.3.
“With misery in retreat, and the trends on all key indicators—wages and jobs as well as inflation and unemployment—Pennsylvanians should be feeling happier with the state of our economy,” said Herzenberg. “Sustaining positive momentum hinges on future public policies that support workers and shared prosperity, by, for example, raising the national or state minimum wage and strengthening workers’ freedom to form unions.”
