Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Inspired by David Leonhardt, here’s the graph to show any of your friends who think that inflation might be a problem thanks to Fed monetary policy or deficit spending. It shows core inflation (inflation minus food and energy) over the past 50 years, which is a good way of visualizing basic inflationary trends in the economy without getting distracted by normal swings in volatile commodity prices. Right now, core inflation has been trending down steadily for four years and is as low as it’s been since the end of World War II. There’s no evidence that food and energy prices are feeding through to core inflation, and no evidence that there’s even a trace of broad inflationary pressure in the economy. It’s just not there. Employment and growth are our problems, not inflation.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate