Entering 2025, models from forecasting companies like Trading Economics anticipate inflation rates between 2.4% and 2.9% between the end of 2024 and the start of 2026. Unfortunately, actually predicting inflation can be difficult, as rates can be affected by a variety of factors, including political climates and supply-chain interruptions.

And all this productivity is why wage growth keeps beating inflation, said Betsey Stevenson, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan. “Real wage growth has to come from productivity growth. Because we’re doing more with less, we get more in the end,” she said.

Here are five numbers on inflation and how its impacting ASCs in 2025: 2.9%: The Consumer Price Index increase, also known as inflation, for December 2024, the most recent available data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Inflation rose .4% from November to December 2024. 3.2%: The increase in inflation year over year, as of December 2024.

Progress on inflation should stall this year” as fiscal, immigration and trade policies shift, caution Bank of America economists.

The latest inflation report slashed the risk that the Fed could go back to hiking interest rates this year, Wall Street strategists say.

(The Center Square) – Newly released federal inflation data shows that prices rose last month. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday released its Consumer Price Index, a key marker of inflation, which jumped 0.4% in December, part of a 2.9% increase over the last year.

The consumer price index, an inflation gauge, rose 2.9% on an annual basis in December 2024 on the back of higher food and energy prices.

Inflation is a hot topic of conversation. The past few years, consumers have been digging even deeper into their pockets for everything from groceries and car insurance to rent and mortgage payments.

The path of inflation proved bumpier than expected in December, with price growth picking up more than economists had forecast. The consumer price index climbed 2.9% year over year in December, according to data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The better-than-expected data sent the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average surging more than 700 points, or 1.7%, as investors felt renewed confidence that the Fed will cut rates multiple times this year. In recent trading, fed-fund futures showed the chances of more than one cut rising to 46%, from 35% on Tuesday, according to CME Group data.

The Consumer Price Index rose 2.9 percent from a year earlier, but a measure of underlying inflation was more encouraging.

Bill Wood: "I am tired of writing about [inflation], and you are undoubtedly tired of reading about it. ... I do not make the trends, I just identify and analyze them."