Inflation surges 8.5% in March, hitting a new 40-year high

Inflation accelerated in March to a new four-decade high as the Russian war in Ukraine fueled rapid price gains for oil and gas that wiped out the benefits of rising wages for most Americans.

The consumer price index rose 8.5% in March from a year ago, according to a new Labor Department report released Tuesday, marking the fastest increase since January 1982, when inflation hit 8.4%. The CPI – which measures a bevy of goods ranging from gasoline and health care to groceries and rents – jumped 1.2% in the one-month period from January. 

Economists expected the index to show that prices surged 8.4% in March from the previous year and 1.2% on a monthly basis.

So-called core prices, which exclude more volatile measurements of food and energy, climbed 6% in January from the previous year – a sharp increase from December, when it rose 5.5%. It was the steepest 12-month increase since August 1982.