U.S. inflation is at its highest rate in 31 years, with consumers seeing prices rise sharply for a variety of goods and services because of persistent supply and labor shortages and strong demand.
Stoked by imbalances in the economy created by the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation is one of the most vexing problems facing economists and government policy makers—from Federal Reserve officials, who set interest rates, to the Biden administration and Congress. The causes are myriad, and the tools that are usually deployed can, in some scenarios, push the economy into a recession as a way of taming price pressures.
