The Federal Reserve Fears On-Going Inflationary Pressures from Rents

I recently complained about the Fed’s belated sense of urgency in trying to get inflation under control. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis shed some light on the specific points of concern for the Federal Reserve. In an economic article titled “Breaking Down the Contributors to High Inflation“, the St. Louis Fed described a 12-month lag for housing price dynamics to feed into rents. Given the soaring prices of housing for over a year, rents are due to soar from already high levels for at least the next year or so. Here is the instructive chart:

The Fed’s core concern comes from the out-sized influence of housing services on the PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditures): “Given that housing services constitutes the largest subcomponent of PCE, accounting for roughly 18% of total consumption expenditures, the impact of housing services inflation on overall PCE inflation is always significant.” In other words, I interpret the Fed’s recent religion on normalizing interest policy as a belated attempt to cool down price appreciation in the housing market.

The St. Louis Fed also put this concern in context by comparing today’s inflation with the inflation from the last economic expansion from July 2010 to January 2020. Interestingly each of the three components of the PCE – durable goods, non-durable goods, and services – have contributed around the same amount of extra inflationary pressure in absolute terms, ranging from 1.46 to 1.71 percentage points. However, with a 65% of total consumption expenditures, the promise of on-going upward pressure on services inflation promises to drive the overall PCE ever higher. The Fed finally could no longer sit still on rates.

(For a good read on belated inflation concerns, review Jason Furman’s critique of the economics profession: “Why Did Almost Nobody See Inflation Coming?“)

Be careful out there!

Full disclosure: no positions