Why consumer prices are rising fast

Here & Now Anytime

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4.1 • 953 Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2026

⏱️ 20 minutes

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Summary

The Labor Department reported on Tuesday that consumer prices increased by 3.8% in April compared to a year ago. That's the fastest pace of price increases in around three years. Wailin Wong, host of the Indicator from NPR’s Planet Money, joins us.

Then, the subject of Taiwan is one of the main priorities for Beijing in the upcoming talks between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. How will Trump approach the topic of Taiwan? We hear from Eyck Freymann, a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford and the author of the new book “Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
0:06.0	People pay attention to what they're paying at the grocery store and at the pump,
0:09.7	and all of those things are making people feel really lousy right now.
0:13.7	The Labor Department confirms inflation is rising fast.
0:28.6	Thank you. is rising fast. It's Tuesday, May 12th, and this is here and now anytime from NPR and WVR.
0:34.0	I'm Chris Bentley.
0:37.4	Today on the show, President Trump's big meeting with Chinese
0:41.2	President Xi Jinping in Beijing has implications for traitors and politicians all over the world,
0:47.4	but maybe no one has as much at stake as Taiwan. The Trump administration, by pursuing the
0:53.3	summit diplomacy, is leading summon Taiwan to doubt the
0:56.6	U.S. commitment.
0:57.7	And Beijing wants to exploit that.
0:59.8	Lots more on Taiwan in just a few minutes.
1:03.5	But first, things are getting more expensive.
1:07.7	No shocker there.
1:09.1	But today, the Labor Department put out its latest best guess at just how much consumer prices are rising.
1:16.6	3.8% in April compared to one year earlier. That's the fastest clip in about three years,
1:22.8	and a much higher increase than before the U.S. and Israel started a war with Iran.
1:29.1	NPR's Waylon Wong broke down the numbers with Robin Young.
1:32.8	Let's take the impact on groceries.
1:35.5	People know prices are up. We all know that when we shop.
1:37.8	And the report shows groceries up 2.9% since last April.
	...

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