The Inflation Shield?
The Producer Price Index shows that grocery stores appear to be shielding consumers from inflation, not hiking prices to gouge Americans.
(Graph: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
The worst bout of inflation in four decades has battered consumers for months, but it has been even worse for businesses. When the Consumer Price Index peaked at 9.1 percent annual growth in June, the Producer Price Index, which shows the change in selling prices received by domestic producers for their output, hit a 48-year high of 22 percent.
Despite what Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) and others have suggested, grocery stores and similar corporations don't appear to be hiking prices to gouge Americans already beset by high inflation. If anything, businesses that buy from producers and sell to consumers seem to be shielding the rest of us.