Shelter costs continue to prop up inflation data
The Consumer Price Index, a key measure of inflation, rose 0.4% from January and 3.2% from last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Both measures were higher than economists had been expecting. A big driver of inflation has been shelter costs, which rose 5.7% on an unadjusted, annual basis and were up 0.4% from last month. Those numbers are lower than they were in January, but have been, overall, very sticky.
In the video above, Yahoo Finance's Rachelle Akuffo and Akiko Fujita discuss the shelter component of the CPI report.
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Editor's note: This article was written by Stephanie Mikulich.
Video Transcript
RACHELLE AKUFFO: Well, February inflation data coming in hotter than expected today at 3.2%, and driving the rise shelter cost. Now, that does remain sticky. Shelter inflation climbing 4/10 of a percent last month.
And we're continuing to see this, Akiko. One of the things that I was looking at here was the difference between rents and OER, Owner's Equivalent Rent. That's how much home owners would be willing to pay, if they were to rent their house instead of owning it, or how much they would perhaps earn from renting out their properties.
We're still seeing a large discrepancy between those numbers. Flagging that we're really still not in that place yet, where we're seeing rents coming down as much as people would like to really get into this space here.
AKIKO FUJITA: We're also seeing a discrepancy, Rachelle, in the CPI data, and then some of the other indices we look at in terms of where rental has been coming down, partly, because government data does tend to lag a little.
When you think about how shelter is measured within CPI, it is about a survey of thousands of units. But those units are only measured once every six months. And so when you think about something else like the Zillow Observed Rent Index, I guess, is the full acronym here or the full name, February was up 0.4% month-over-month.
But when you look at where it is compared to a year ago, it's a 3.5% gain versus the 5.7% we saw in the CPI print. So that's one way to look at it. And those who are far smarter than I am, Rachelle, who are looking at housing would argue that, look, the CPI data isn't necessarily reflecting the pullback that we are seeing in rentals, even though we are seeing that in the market right now.
So it'll be curious to see a few more months here in that print to see, in fact, if it is reflecting what we are hearing, at least, anecdotally, that rents are starting to come down.
RACHELLE AKUFFO: It's true. And one thing that we keep looking at with this inflation data being that it is backward looking is some of the revisions that we're also likely to see, because the rent that people are paying at the moment certainly isn't reflected in what we're seeing in this February data here.
But worth keeping in mind. Still seeing that stickiness there and giving the Fed still more room to pause here. Still more room to hold rates, at least, for now, as we wait for some of those stickier parts of inflation to see some relief.
And when you think about gasoline and shelter, which does include rents, contributing more than 60% to that monthly rise that we saw in CPI. So that last mile to tame inflation, still, a little bit precarious at the moment.
