US inflation rose 3.1% in November, stubbornly above Fed’s target

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2 years ago

December 14, 2023

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US inflation rose 3.1% in November, stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s long-term target and bolstering the case for central bankers to keep interest rates at current levels this spring.

The Consumer Price Index — which tracks changes in the costs of everyday goods and services — was down slightly from October’s 3.2% reading, in line with economists’ forecasts, and was its lowest monthly reading since June.

Nevertheless, it remained well above the 2% pace eyed by the Fed — a figure the US economy hasn’t seen since 2012 — as central bankers have ratcheted interest rates to a 22-year high, between 5.25% and 5.5%, in hopes of an economic slowdown.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics attributed the second consecutive month-over-month slowdown to the gasoline index, which saw a 6% decline from last month.

Core CPI a number that excludes volatile food and energy prices and serves as a closely watched gauge among policymakers for long-term trends increased 0.2% in November after rising 0.3% in October.

Per AAA figures, gas averages at about $3.14 in the US on Tuesday, down from the $3.35-per-gallon average when last month’s CPI report was released.

The shelter index, which tracks housing costs, rose 0.4%, “offsetting a decline in the gasoline index,” the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has kept economists guessing about whether another rate hike is impending, though central bankers themselves have even seemed to be wrestling with conflicting economic signals.

In a hawkish speech earlier this month, he insisted that central bankers will continue their tightening regime until the job is done and inflation is once again 2%.

We are prepared to tighten policy further if it becomes appropriate to do so, he said during a fireside chat at Spelman College in Atlanta.

The full effects of our tightening have likely not yet been felt,” Powell insisted.

However, just days earlier he seemed to take a more cautious approach to raising interest rates moving forward, noting that central bankers were “proceeding carefully,” according to minutes of the Oct. 31 to Nov. 1 session, when the Fed ended up holding the benchmark overnight interest rate steady in the current 5.25% to 5.5% range.

Meanwhile, the CME FedWatch Tool now projects a more than 98% chance that the Fed doesnt raise rates again this year — up from 85% last month.

Economists and prominent Wall Street executives have been worried that without a rate cut soon, the economy could be headed for a so-called “hard landing” — where interest rates are taken so high that it spurs a recession — especially following November’s strong jobs report that signaled the economy’s momentum has continued despite the Fed’s tightening cycle.

US employers added a higher-than-expected 199,000 jobs last month, well above the 180,000 jobs economists expected to be added, according to Refinitiv data.

However, the unemployment rate edged down to 3.7% a sign that the economy could skirt a recession in favor of a soft landing.

Lower hiring stints combined with higher-than-expected unemployment historically signals a recession.

Business

Reeves’s budget tax rises ‘a pub destroyer’, say landlords

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2 hours ago

December 23, 2025

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Reeves's budget tax rises 'a pub destroyer', say landlords

A millionaires’ playground, Poole in Dorset boasts some of the most expensive properties in the UK, and has been called Britain’s Palm Beach.

Away from the yachts and the mansions of Sandbanks, however, Poole is also a beer drinkers’ paradise, with 58 pubs in the parliamentary constituency alone.

But now many of Dorset’s pub landlords have joined a bitter backlash against rises in business rates of up to £30,000 in Rachel Reeves’s November budget.

Across the UK, it is claimed up to 1,000 publicans have even banned Labour MPs from their pubs, after the chancellor axed a 40% rates discount, introduced during COVID, from next April.

The row over the rises, brewing since the budget, came to a head in a clash between Kemi Badenoch and Sir Keir Starmer in the final Prime Minister’s Questions of 2025.

“He gave his word that he would help pubs,” said the Tory leader.

“Yet they face a 15% rise in business rates because of his budget. Will he be honest and admit that his taxes are forcing pubs to close?”

The PM replied that the temporary relief introduced during COVID – a scheme the Conservatives put in place and Labour supported, he said – had come to an end.

“But it was always a temporary scheme coming to an end,” he said.

“We have now put in place a £4bn transitional relief.”

But in the Barking Cat Ale House in Poole, facing an increase in business rates of nearly £9,000 a year, the father and son co-landlords fear the rises could mean last orders for many pubs.

“We’re sort of in the average area at 157%, but we’ve got a lot of local pubs that are increasing by 600%, and another one by 800%,” Ambrose senior, Mark, told Sky News.

“It’s a pub destroyer. Pubs can’t survive these kinds of increases. It’s not viable. Most pubs are just about scraping by anyway. If you add these massive increases your profit margins are wiped out.

“We struggle as it is. You can’t have that kind of increase and expect businesses to succeed.

“Fortunately, the customers understand. But they still don’t want to have to spend an extra 30 or 50 pence a pint.”

Son Michael added: “It’s all back to front. It’s really these bigger pub companies and supermarkets that need to be facing increased taxes. We can’t handle them. They can.”

Michelle Smith, landlady of the Poole Arms, the oldest pub on the town’s quay, dating back to 1635, said: “Our rates per value is due to go up £9,000 in April, so it’s quite a deal.”

“And we had a rates increase just gone as well,” she added. “So our rates had already increased over £1,000 a month last April. So another hit is quite considerable really.

“Prices definitely have to go up with all the different price increases that we’ve got throughout: business rates, wage increases, the beer goes up from the breweries. Everything is going up.”

Backing the publicans, Neil Duncan-Jordan, who became Poole’s first ever Labour MP last year, has written to the chancellor demanding a rethink. He said he is prepared to vote against the tax rise in the Commons.

“They’ve got to listen,” he told Sky News.

“They’ve got to listen to the high street, to publicans, people who run social clubs and listen to problems that they’re facing and the impact that these changes have made.”

Mr Duncan-Jordan said he was prepared to support an amendment to the Finance Bill, which turns the budget into law and had its second reading in the Commons last week.

Despite being suspended for four months for rebelling against welfare cuts earlier this year, he said: “I was discussing this with some MPs just this morning and I’ll be happy to support those. Sometimes you just have to say what you think is right.”

As chancellor, Ms Reeves has regularly raised a glass to pubs and promised to protect them from rising costs.

But Sir Keir has faced the wrath of a publican before, when he was thrown out of a pub in Bath during COVID by an anti-lockdown landlord.

This time, without a U-turn by the chancellor on the business rates increases, pub landlords fear the government has them over a barrel.

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