ECONOMY | U.S. ECONOMY

Consumer Prices Plateau as Inflation Slows to Prepandemic Levels

Forty-year inflation high in June turned into relatively normal price growth in second half of 2022

By Danny Dougherty and Nate Rattner
https://twitter.com/DannyDougherty
danny.dougherty@wsj.com
https://twitter.com/naterattner
nate.rattner@wsj.com
Jan. 20, 2023 5:30 am ET

After a period of steep inflation, Americans have seen monthly price growth ease, but when will things get back to normal?

The inflation benchmark, measuring price growth over a year, hit a 40-year high in June after months of sustained price increases. Since then, monthly gains have slowed. While December 2022 prices were up 6.5% from a year earlier, a Wall Street Journal analysis of Labor Department data indicates that annual growth has eased to levels that existed before the pandemic. Inflation observed during the past six months would extend to prices rising 1.9% over the course of a year, close to the average annual rate of 1.7% between 2010 and 2020.

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