Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she expects that a moderation in the rise of housing costs will help deliver lower inflation in 2024, Bloomberg News reported. Shelter costs carry the biggest weighting in the consumer price index, accounting for about a third. They made an outsized contribution to overall inflation in 2023, and that’s continued this year despite reports that new lease agreements have increased at a much slower pace or in some cases even declined. “It takes a while for that to filter into the CPI,” Yellen said Wednesday in an interview with Fox Business. “And so I have every expectation that the single largest contributor to inflation is going to be moving down over this year.” Government data released Tuesday showed that a key measure of inflation topped economists’ expectations for a second straight month in February. Though many goods continued to show price declines, a jump in gasoline helped drive the overall consumer price index 3.2% higher than a year ago. The core measure, which excludes food and energy and is viewed as a better guide to underlying price trends, rose 3.8%.
