Inflation — inching steadily toward the Federal Reserve's 2% target — has been easing throughout 2023, increasing the odds that the Fed might achieve a "soft landing" for the economy by bringing inflation down without triggering a recession.
After peaking at 7.1% in 2022, inflation fell to 3% in November, a month that also saw each of the major indices turn in one of their best months of the year, according to data from Nasdaq.
Despite the more bullish stock performance and the consistently falling inflation, Americans remain up against prices that have stayed stubbornly high.
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A November Bankrate survey found that, while a majority of workers received pay raises this year, their income still wasn't able to keep up with inflation.
"While inflation has come down, broadly speaking, prices have not," Bankrate senior economic analyst Mark Hamrick said in a statement. "There is a kind of continuing, virtual sticker shock that continues to weigh on the minds and pocketbooks of consumers that is meaningful."
A Nov. 27 Bloomberg report found that it now costs $119.27 to purchase the same items and services that before the pandemic cost families only $100. The cost of groceries is up 25% from January 2020 levels and rent is up 20%.
Easing inflation, while a good sign for the economy, just indicates that prices are growing at a slower rate, not that the prices themselves are dropping.
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Report: Powerful companies are 'amplifying inflation' through increased profit margins
A new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and Common Wealth identified a culprit behind this dichotomy: higher profit margins from powerful international companies.
Energy companies — like ExxonMobil and Shell — and food and commodities corporations — like Kraft Heinz — saw profits that have "far" outpaced the inflation that followed the onset of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Tech, telecommunications and finance firms also experienced significant profit increases, according to the report.
The price increases across these sectors "exacerbated the initial price shock – contributing to inflation peaking higher and lasting longer than had there been less market power," the report claims.
Exxon, for example, reported earnings of $14.3 billion in 2019, before the pandemic and the inflationary environment that followed. The company reported earnings of $55.7 billion for 2022.
The report found evidence that some companies, beyond passing on their higher costs to the consumer, actually increased their profit margins, "not only passing inflation on but further amplifying it."
"Inflationary shocks cannot be avoided, but they need not persist so long," Chris Hayes, chief economist of Common Wealth, said in a statement. "Our analysis of companies suggests many large firms, beyond just the commodities sector, are using their power to preserve their profit margins. This pushes the shocks downstream to workers, consumers and labor-intensive industries that are less able to absorb them."
Such practices, Hayes said, beyond being unfair, have worked to destabilize the economy.
“We need a new set of targeted and strategic macroeconomic policies to encourage companies to behave differently and bring down inflation, both now and in the future," he said.
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