NC State economist predicts we'll have to 'tighten our belts' for inflation

Two new reports tracking inflation and the state of the U.S. economy are due Wednesday morning.

2022-10-12

N.C. State economist Mike Walden said he’s expecting to see a little easing in the inflation rate, but it may be short-lived.

"People should understand that we're probably looking at a challenging six to eight month period, where in order to squeeze out inflation, we're going to have to unfortunately tighten our belts," Walden said.

A clear indicator of that is gas prices, which jumped a total of 20 cents within the past week. Wednesday's state average is $3.51 compared to $3.31 last week.

Experts are expecting the September issue of the Producer Price index and the Consumer Price Index to show a moderate dip in wholesale prices.

However, they are not expecting it to deliver an “all-clear” signal on inflation that would warrant Federal Reserve officials to pull back from their current pace of rate tightening.

Walden predicts the holiday shopping season may look a little different for folks stirring away from purchasing the big ticket items and focusing more on essential goods and services.