Fuel prices are continuing to fall. After breaking records earlier this summer, gas is back down to $4.57 per gallon, which is the national average, and diesel is at $5.57 per gallon.
However, Jared Bernstein, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, says that the decline was not included in this week’s Consumer Price Index. He says that regardless, inflation is still unacceptably high, but the ag industry should see some relief next month.
“In fact, they’re intimately merged. The price of energy is a key input, whether it’s fertilizer, fueling tractors, and other farm equipment or a feedstock. And so, the decline of energy prices, where we’ve seen a much more significant decline in the price of oil. Those declines should help people in the agriculture sector who have faced such high energy costs. I think the other thing we can do, and we’ve had some success here, but we need to keep pushing, is make sure that our import and export markets are operating efficiently.”
We will have to wait and see how much the decline in fuel prices helps overall costs when the CPI and PPI come out again next month.
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