According to the recent February inflation report, prices for consumer goods and services

increased by 0.4% last month and 3.2% for the last 12 months. While inflation is back in line

with long-term historical averages, most Americans aren't feeling much relief. In fact, in a recent

poll when registered voters were asked,

what would you most like to see improved in the economy? Sixty-four percent of them said

lower prices on goods and services. Only 20 percent of respondents said higher wages. Now, in reality,

consumer prices in the aggregate don't really go down, and therefore we shouldn't expect or demand

lower prices in the future. In fact, a general decline in prices, also known as deflation,

would signal that trouble is around the corner for the economy.

Inflation, as a reminder, measures the rate of change in prices, and on average, over

the last 110 years, that rate of change has averaged

just over 3% per year. In other words, overall prices for consumer goods and services in the

United States have only gone up for the last century. Prices going up isn't what shocks consumers'

wallets. It's the rate at which prices are going

up. But now that prices today are increasing at a more reasonable rate than their 9% peak in

2022, why does everything still feel so expensive? Why are consumers still feeling like prices

are putting a strain on their budgets and demanding lower prices.

Welcome to the Stay Wealthy podcast.

I'm your host, Taylor Schulte, and today I'm digging into the current state of inflation,

why prices still feel high, and what the data suggests about where we might be headed.

To grab the data sources and links from today's episode, just head over to you staywealthy.com forward slash 214.

Since January of 2020, prices across the board for consumer goods and services as measured

...