The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank closely tracks overall inflation, especially core inflation. Core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) is the inflation measure economists prefer to track as it excludes the volatility of energy and food prices. Excluding spikes in energy and food prices allows economists to disaggregate inflation and measure changes in the price of “core” or basic goods and services.
It has been a little over two years since the Covid-19 pandemic afflicted the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of October 2022, daily cases reached over 97 million and deaths surpassed one million. Despite the