Inflation at highest rate since 1990

A worsening surge of inflation for such bedrock necessities as food, rent, autos and heating oil is setting Americans up for a financially difficult Thanksgiving and holiday shopping season.

Prices for U.S. consumers jumped 6.2 percent in October compared with a year earlier, leaving families facing their highest inflation rate since 1990, the Labor Department said Wednesday. From September to October, prices jumped 0.9 percent.

Inflation is eroding the strong gains in wages and salaries that have flowed to America’s workers in recent months, creating a political threat to the Biden administration and congressional Democrats and intensifying pressure on the Federal

Reserve as it considers how fast to withdraw its efforts to boost the economy.

Fueling the spike in prices has been robust consumer demand, which has run into persistent supply shortages from COVIDrelated factory shutdowns in China, Vietnam and other overseas manufacturers. America’s employers, facing worker shortages, have also been handing out sizable pay raises, and many of them have raised prices to offset those higher labor costs.

The accelerating price increases have fallen disproportionately on lowerearning households, which spend a significant portion of their incomes on food, rent, and gas. Food banks are struggling to assist the needy, with beef, egg and peanut butter prices jumping. Millions of households that are planning year-end travel, Thanksgiving dinners and holiday gift-giving will be forced to pay much more this year.

The jump in inflation is hardly confined to the U.S. Prices have been accelerating in Europe and elsewhere, too, with annual inflation in the 19 countries that use the euro currency exceeding 4 percent in October, the most in 13 years, and energy prices spiking 23 percent. In Brazil, inflation soared more than 10 percent in the 12 months through October, according to data released this week. Higher prices for electricity, cooking gas, meat and other staples have plunged many Brazilians further into financial instability.

Americans are now spending 15 percent more on goods than before the pandemic.

Pool / Getty Images The shadows of a soldier with the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as “The Old Guard,” is seen as he moves flowers during a centennial commemoration event at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday, in Arlington, Va. Leading up to Veterans Day, Arlington National Cemetery opened the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Plaza Tuesday and Wednesday to members of the public and allowed visitors to lay flowers for the first time in almost a century.