Published: 2023-06-13T16:32:06.000Z
May U.S. Median CPI Makes Marginal Further Progress
Senior Economist , North America
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While May’s core CPI at 0.436% before rounding was a 3-month high, the Cleveland Fed’s Median CPI at 4.7% annualized was the slowest since August 2021, if still strong and only a marginal improvement from 4.9% in both March and April.
The Median CPI has shown improvement in the last three months, with February’s outcome much stronger at 7.9%, but the Median CPI looks to be fairly well correlated with owners’ equivalent rent in the CPI breakdown, which has seen 3 straight months at 0.5% after trending around 0.7% before then. Despite significant slowing in the housing market in 2022, signs of slowing in housing CPI are still quite moderate, if visible in the last three months. That housing sector data has regained momentum in early 2023 may limit the downside in future housing sector inflation data.