Inflation Abroad

The U.S. inflation rate of roughly 3.5% a year has been sounding alarms, in part because it is somewhere around twice the target rate that the U.S. Fed economists want to engineer.  That means the potential for more rate hikes.

But how alarming is a 3.5% inflation rate when compared with other global economies?  The graphic shows the hot spots where inflation is dramatically higher than the rest of the world, and it shows that the U.S. is firmly in the moderate range.  The inflation rate in Argentina would be truly alarming: 288% a year.  Turkey is currently experiencing a 68.5% annual inflation rate, which is only sightly worse than Sudan’s 66% rate and Venezuela’s 67% statistic.  In Egypt, inflation is running right at 33%, Iran’s rate is just over 35%.

At the other end of the spectrum, inflation is nearly zero in China, and at or below 1% in Italy and Switzerland.  Countries at or near the U.S. level are the United Kingdom (3.2%), Spain (3.3%), Australia (3.6%) and South Korea (3.1%).  Most European countries are in the 2-2.5 percent range.

Source:

https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate

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