, Columnist
It’s Still Getting More Expensive to Be Poor
Inflation is higher for households with the lowest incomes.
Keep it up.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesHeartwarming as it may be to see Walmart and other companies giving their lowest-paid workers a raise, the latest inflation data offer a caveat: It looks like the poor need bigger wage gains just to stay in place.
In recent years, overall inflation hasn’t been excessive. If anything, it has been too low: As of December, so-called core consumer prices (excluding volatile food and energy) were up just 1.8 percent from a year earlier, below the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent.