The US CPI in November saw the largest increase in seven months, but it is unlikely to prevent the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates next week

On December 11, the U.S. Consumer Price Index for November recorded its largest increase in seven months. However, against the backdrop of a cooling job market, this is unlikely to prevent the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates for the third time next week. Data shows that last month's CPI increased by 0.3% month-on-month, marking the largest rise since April after four consecutive months of a 0.2% increase. The year-on-year growth rate of CPI rose to 2.7% following an increase of 2.6% in October. Compared with its peak value of 9.1% on June 2022, inflation's year-on-year growth rate has significantly slowed down despite recent stagnation in reducing inflation to Fed's target rate of 2%. Nevertheless, the Federal Reserve is now more focused on labor markets where unemployment accelerated to 4.2%, even though employment growth picked up slightly in November after being severely disrupted by strikes and hurricanes in October and maintaining at around 4.1% for two consecutive months.