by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
Despite the Fed’s proclamations, the dollar lost purchasing power at a good clip.
The inflation measure by the Cleveland Fed – the “Median CPI” – rose at 0.3% in January from December. This translates into an annualized rate of 3.7%. For the 12-month period, the Median CPI rose 2.9%. Since July last year, the index has ranged between 2.9% and 3.0%, the highest in the data series launched during the Financial Crisis.
The Median CPI is based on the data from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) but removes the extremes of price increases and price decreases, that are often temporary, to reveal underlying inflation trends. The chart shows the 12-month Median CPI, and for comparison, the “core CPI,” (CPI without the volatile food prices and the extremely volatile energy prices):