YoY Measures of Inflation: Services, Goods and Shelter

Here are a few measures of inflation:

The first graph is the one Fed Chair Powell had mentioned early last year when services less rent of shelter was up 7.6% year-over-year.  This declined sharply and is now up 3.4% YoY.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the YoY price change for Services and Services less rent of shelter through November 2023.

Services were up 4.9% YoY as of December 2023, down from 5.2% YoY in November.

Services less rent of shelter was up 3.4% YoY in December, down from 3.5% YoY in November.

The second graph shows that goods prices started to increase year-over-year (YoY) in 2020 and accelerated in 2021 due to both strong demand and supply chain disruptions.

Durables were at -1.2% YoY as of December 2023, up from -1.6% YoY in November.

Commodities less food and energy commodities were at 0.1% YoY in December, up from 0.0% YoY in November.

Goods inflation was transitory.

Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in shelter from the CPI report (through December) and housing from the PCE report (through November 2023)

Shelter was up 6.2% year-over-year in December, down from 6.5% in November. Housing (PCE) was up 6.7% YoY in November, down from 6.9% in October.

This is still catching up with private data.  Moody's just reported that effective rents were down YoY: "At the national level, asking rent was down to $1,825 while effective rent closed at $1,732, 0.8% and 1.7% lower than their respective year-ago levels."

The BLS noted this morning: "The index for shelter continued to rise in December, contributing over half of the monthly all items increase. "

Core CPI ex-shelter was up 2.2% YoY in December, up from 2.1% in November.