Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Drouk. Today we're going to focus

on an economic question that could have important human and political consequences. Why are

we seeing spiking inflation rates and how long will they last? So last week's data from

the Department of Labor showed that consumer prices rose 5.5% between June of 2020 and June

of this year. That's well above the 2% inflation rate that the Federal Reserve targets and it's

the highest level of inflation we've seen since 2008. According to a recent Maris poll,

rising prices is now Americans leading economic worry. 26% said as much. Wages and unemployment

came in second and third. Many economists predicted a period of increased inflation as COVID restrictions

were lifted. But whether it persists could shape political debates heading into the midterms,

it could also shape perceptions of and support for Biden's agenda. Republicans point to the

$2 trillion American Rescue Plan as exacerbating inflation and say that the more than $4 trillion

in additional proposed spending would make things worse. So here with me to sort out what is going

on with inflation is economics professor at the George Washington University, Tara Sinclair.

She's also a senior fellow at indeed. Welcome back to the podcast, Tara. Thanks,

Salem. Great to be back. It's great to have you. So first things first, the last time we talked

on this podcast, it was March 20th of 2020 actually went back and looked it up. It feels like a

lifetime ago and honestly, we never relive those days. But back then, we were talking about the

possibility of an economic catastrophe. What has happened to the economy since then?

Well, in many ways, we did experience the economic catastrophe in all of its horrific

gore. We saw the worst unemployment claims we've ever imagined by many millions more than we'd

ever seen before. We saw huge drops in GDP and employment. But on the other hand, it was surprisingly

short. The NBER just told us that the recession ended, which means bottomed out in April of 2020.

...