Inflation Finally Starting to Hit Healthy Levels

It's finally happened. The PCE measure of price inflation has breached the 2 percent barrier:

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Eric Morath comments: "That is a healthy signal for the economy, showing excess capacity and high unemployment that long held inflation near historically low levels have finally abated. Firmer inflation could give Fed policy makers leeway to consider additional interest-rate increases this year."

That's a refreshing change from the usual reaction of "ZOMG! Inflation is nearing 2 percent!" Nonetheless, like a broken record, I'll point out that (a) core inflation is still under 2 percent and barely increasing at all, and (b) 2 percent is not a "target." Not in the sense of something you should never exceed, anyway. It's a target for average inflation, and the average since the end of the Great Recession has been 1.5 percent. More recently, the average over the past two years has been 0.8 percent. It's going to be a while before we make up for so many years of too-low inflation.

Of course, it's also true that the Fed's target probably should be 3-4 percent, but that's a post for another day.