White House: We’re Still Making Inflation Progress, Last Two Months Had ‘Seasonality’

During an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, White House National Economic Council Deputy Director Daniel Hornung stated that “our progress on inflation does continue,” but “we’ve expected some seasonality in January and February. We didn’t expect the progress to continue on a straight line.”

Hornung said, [relevant remarks begin around 3:30] “I won’t comment on monetary policy and the Federal Reserve. I think what I can say, if you take a step back, our progress on inflation does continue, down from a peak of 9% to the 3% range. Always, I think, we’ve expected some seasonality in January and February. We didn’t expect the progress to continue on a straight line. But I think if you look at what we have from CPI and PPI and now looking ahead to core PCE for the month of February, expect some continued progress there on that core annual inflation number. And from the president’s perspective, I think, as you saw in the State of the Union, a continued focus on his part of continuing to really make clear to the American people that he has a series of plans that would lower costs for American consumers and really drawing a contrast with Republicans in Congress who have not taken up his plans, and, in some cases, have focused more on other issues like tax cuts for large corporations and the wealthy.”

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