Why your homemade bread just won't rise [Ramirez letter]
Paul Manchester, Silver Spring
Washington Post May 4 2024: A15
Paul Manchester, Silver Spring
Michael Ramirez's April 20 editorial cartoon, "Food inflation," repeated the common view that food prices are a major, or even the paramount, factor in today's inflation. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics belie this belief. For the 12 months ending in March, the overall consumer price index rose by 3.5 percent, while the CPI for food-at-home items rose by only 1.2 percent.
Further, food-at-home items constitute only 8 percent of the overall CPI, with other items making up 92 percent. This means that if there had been no increase at all in food-at-home prices, overall inflation would have been 3.2 percent, only slightly less than the actual increase of 3.5 percent. So one must look at items other than food at home in breaking down the current rate of inflation.
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