November 19, 2023 — The Bureau of Labor Statistics on November 14, remarkably, announced that the US CPI had been unchanged in October (whether seasonally adjusted or not). That is, the level of the CPI was unchanged, not the inflation rate, which was zero. Of course, single-month numbers are too volatile to draw much of a conclusion. Not every month will see the price of gasoline plunge by 5.0 %, as it did from September to October.
More informatively, the headline CPI inflation rate over the last 12 months was 3.2 %, far down from 6.5 % in 2022. At the risk of tempting fate, one might say that the inflation battle is being won.