and the bottom line here, charles, is simple. since biden came into office, prices are up by 15%, and wages and salaries to workers are up 12%. so the math isn t complicated here. that means the average worker has family, has lost somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 in purchasing power. now, yes, inflation has come down. it was 9.2% last summer. by the way, it was 1 # #.5% when trump left office, but it s 3.2% now. one other quick thing, when i talk to people on the street just like you were at fox and ask them about inflation, they don t believe inflation s only 3.2% because if you look at what s happened to food prices, gas prices, rent, the kinds of things, charles, you have to buy each week and month, those are up by closer to 10%. charles: yeah. and then some of the numbers like, for instance, airline fares down 8%, no one believes that. crystal, president biden trying to pivot here. you know, one thing that has always amazed me with this
volatile, remained steady at 0.2%. on an annual basis, 4.7%. inwant to show you the categories that we as consumers deal with the most. you can see gasoline prices over the last year or so have fallen about 20%. food prices 4.9%. shelter still higher by 7.7%. what we are seeing in the report again shelter prices still high, but we saw some declines. and areas like airline fares, used cars and trucks, medical care, so still seeing some declines. it s a moderating inflation picture. what does this mean for the fed? the fed meets next month. they have a lot more reports between now and then. another jobs report, more inflation reports, but i will say that a report like this, citi bank put out a report saying if we saw core cpi, core inflation at 0.2%, it would give the fed some credibility, some evidence to perhaps pause next month.
had a huge reversal in some of them. you mentioned gasoline. gasoline peaked a year ago at $4.65 a galgallon. it is $3.50 in america, so it is falling, as you said. food at home which was going up at almost 14% a couple years ago, year and a half or so ago, is now going up at less than 4%. rent is a proxy for housing, how we think about housing, up only 2%. airline fares, which obviously did move a lot when people weren t traveling, then they surged when they were traveling, are down 18% from their peak. used cars, which was another covid phenomenon, when everybody rushed out to buy cars, are now down 10% from their peak. the picture is obviously very different than it was and much more positive for the economy and for joe biden, of course. steve, as we look at your third chart, the other fascinating number yesterday was that real wages were up. you put these two things together, wages up, inflation