Inflation cooled in November to 2.7%

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: breaking news. Just a few minutes ago, we got brand new data on inflation. We've been waiting for this. We didn't get any readings during the government shutdown. This was for November, and it does show inflation cooling off a little bit. Let's get right to CNN's Matt Egan to explain these numbers. What are they and what do they mean, Matt? Well, John, this was a surprise, [00:00:22] Matt Egan: a positive surprise on arguably the number one economic issue right now, affordability. Now, we were bracing for today's report to show that inflation stayed at 3% in September, but it didn't. It actually slowed to 2.7%. Now, not only is that a four-month low, that is better than the expectation of 3%. And when you look at the trend here, the left side of the screen here, this is last year, and you could see inflation really was coming down last summer. And then it actually bottomed in April at around 2.3%, right? That was really giving people some hopes that maybe we'd be back to that 2% goal that the Fed considers healthy. And then that's when the president rolled out his Liberation Day tariffs. And you can see how much inflation ticked up in part because of those tariffs. The good news is that it is coming back down, at least based on today's numbers. Now, we don't know what the inflation rate was in October. That's because the government shut down, mess with the collection of data. Just to remind everyone, though, the fact that the inflation rate has come down, it doesn't mean that prices are falling across the economy. It means they're still going up just at a more gradual pace. Now, let's look at some of the things that got more expensive in November. I think the good news is that gasoline was only up by less than 1%. In fact, gas prices continue to fall this month. Groceries, another major point of frustration in recent years. Grocery prices only up by 1.9%. So that's less than the overall rate of inflation. However, there were still some things that got a lot more expensive. Look at this electricity, 7% almost natural gas, which is what people use to heat their homes often 9%. And bad news for coffee lovers, instant coffee got 24% more expensive year over year. That's the biggest annual increase since 1995. But look, when you put it all together, this is overall encouraging news, John, when it comes to the cost of living and investors over on Wall Street seem to like it because we see U.S. stock futures have moved up modestly [00:02:29] Speaker 1: higher since these numbers came out. Back to you. Yeah, those numbers up because I think the inflation number is better good on their face and also better than expected right there. Although I will say when you put up those prices for instant coffee, as someone who wakes up pretty early in the morning, my heart skipped a beat there. But hopefully that's an anomaly. Matt Egan, thank you for this. We're going to keep talking about this throughout the show. With us now, Congressman Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York. Congressman, nice to see you this morning. So this brand new inflation data just in shows it cooling off down to 2.7% from 3% in September. Better than expected. Your reaction to what is some positive economic news? Well, look, here's what I'll say that when you look [00:03:14] Gregory Meeks: at the investments that individuals like the president's friends have made and AI and those kinds of things. That is what has kept the economy somewhere afloat. But it does not help the average everyday American who is seeing grocery prices, who are looking at the cost of living and the cost of housing. These are real pains that the president said that he would be able to fix on day one. And here we are about a year later. And it is getting worse as a result of his tariffs, actually, which is a tax to [00:03:47] Speaker 1: the American people. Well, but since September, just to be clear, we have the chart up so people can see and inflation did go up between April and a peak in September, which you can see on the right of your screen there. Congressman, you can't see it, but we're showing the numbers did go up from a low of like 2.4% in April, up to 3% in September, but now going down again. And all I'm asking is, does it look [00:04:08] Gregory Meeks: like it's headed in the right direction now? Well, we want inflation to go down. We also don't want unemployment to go up. So if you look at, you know, want to look at all of the statistics, you got to look at both. So we see that the number of jobs that were created was down. The unemployment rate for the first time has gone up higher than it's been in a number in a number of years. So, you know, when you try to look at this, I try to look at it not just on how it feels for those who are well-to-do, but how does it feel for the average, everyday American citizen? And how has it improved their lives? And do they feel a difference? And I think that if you go around America and you talk to the individuals who the President seems not to ever meet with or anything of that nature, because those are not the, you know, the well-to-do who's making these deals on critical minerals, et cetera, for themselves, because it's been very good for them. But if you talk to the average, everyday American, the hard worker, ask them how they feel, and they will tell you exactly how they feel. [00:05:11] Speaker 1: You obviously are not supportive of a lot of the President's economic policies and I imagine would do things differently. There's a new poll out from Quinnipiac University, which asked, "Who do you trust more to handle the economy? Who is better at handling the economy?" And the results of that show that Americans would still prefer Republicans. 46% say Republicans are better at handling the economy than Democrats. So, if the policies are as bad as you say they are, why is it that voters still say they prefer Republicans on this? Well, I think that if you look at those same [00:05:48] Gregory Meeks: numbers, you see that Donald Trump is at an all-time low in regards to the economy. I think that the last poll that I saw a day ago was he's down to 36% on the economy. Yeah, it's bad. If that's true, [00:06:03] Speaker 1: why don't they trust you more? If it's so bad for him, why don't they trust you more for the economy, [00:06:07] Gregory Meeks: you being Democrats? Well, I think that they see who's fighting for health care to try to make sure that those costs don't go up. As we know what was going to take place as of January 1st, when they see those insurance rates going up and some will be able -- will not be able to afford or have to make a decision between their medicine and buying food, I think that as this continues, and I think that you will see as the president continues to move, things will -- are not improving. I would hope that they would improve, but I think that there's several things for the average, everyday American, because I see a huge gap between how individuals who the president has taken care of in his circles, how they are moving in this economy and how they are gaining. And that, you know, when you look at the curve, that makes a difference, as opposed to the average, everyday person, some who may not even be invested in the stock market, for example, some who are just working day to day to try to get food. [00:07:08] Speaker 4: Joining me right now is CNN Global Economic Analyst, Rana Faruher. It's good to see you, Rana. What is the story that this new read on inflation is telling you? [00:07:19] Speaker 5: Well, it's saying that things are slightly better. You know, inflation is something that people feel. It's not just about the statistics. You and I have talked about that before. So even though these statistics show that things are going marginally in the right direction, there's still a lot of pain out there. There's still a sense that wages are not keeping up with the cost of living. You know, we hear about grocery store. We hear about energy. But there are these bigger issues of housing, education, health care, which is going to be going up in the coming years. So I'm happy that we have a small downtick in inflation in the top line numbers. But I don't think that this issue of affordability [00:07:59] Speaker 4: is going away. Yeah, I mean, we have the president's speech last night talking about what he says are the successes of the 11 months first 11 months of Trump 2.0 and saying a lot that needed fact checking with regard to successes on economic policy. But if this is and I watched you last night talking about it, if this is how we end the year, what is? What is the trend? What is the thing that you're then watching most closely heading into the new year? [00:08:28] Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a great question. I'm actually going to be watching the shopping season very closely, and I'll tell you why. I think that's going to be a tell about whether we are in a kind of a to America's world where. All right, you see the top line inflation numbers down a bit. You see mixed numbers about the job market. Things haven't fallen off a cliff. They're not great, though. There's some softening. But is it mainly at the sort of bottom 25% 50% of the socioeconomic spectrum? Are people at the top doing fine? Are they spending? Where are people spending? How are they spending? I think that's going to be really, really interesting to see because it will tell you something about who's feeling secure and who's not feeling secure right now.