February 14, 2018

Inflation Rate Rises 0.02% in January, Wall Street Panics

My goal in life isn’t to deny forever that inflation is low and under control. But every time I try to get out, the Wall Street Journal pulls me back in:

Inflation Starts to Make a Comeback

A closely watched gauge of U.S. consumer prices offered fresh evidence that a long run of very low inflation is ending….A month-over-month measure of what households pay for everything except gasoline and food rose a seasonally adjusted 0.349% in January—the strongest one-month increase since March 2005….Though it signals a strengthening economy, price pressures are getting investors nervous.

They are literally pointing at one month’s worth of data to claim that inflation is coming to get us. Here’s the more normal annual inflation rate:

In January, CPI was flat and core CPI (excluding food and energy) was up by a tenth of a point. You can certainly make a case that CPI has rebounded from its unusually low rate in 2015 (which was mostly due to falling energy prices), but then you also have to acknowledge that core CPI has been on a downward trend for the entire past year.

If an inflation rate of 2.13 percent—up from 2.11 percent in December!—is spooking investors, we’re in big trouble. 2.13 percent!

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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