A few more thoughts on recent #inflation data: the past four #CPI prints have been heavily driven by shelter inflation, and April shelter CPI came in at a hefty 3.4% year-over-year.
Since #shelter holds a 33% weighting in the index that implies that 1.15% of the 2% headline CPI figure in April, or 57% of the #inflation contribution, came from shelter. Looking at the last four CPI prints, the shelter contribution would be even higher, on average, at 65%!
Further, as we’ve argued before, this data displays some meaningful regional variation, with core inflation readings in the West of the country running at greater than 0.8% more than inflation in the U.S. as a whole.
It’s common knowledge that West coast #rents and real estate have soared in recent years, pricing more and more people out of the region, and one of the more remarkable market-based measures of that dynamic is the U-Haul Moving Index (UMI).
The @uhaul UMI shows that truck rental rates originating in major #California cities and ending in neighboring states are 5-8 times the price of rates going in the reverse direction. The lesson? Supply/demand does work!
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