Unemployment rate live online: inflation relief check by state, SS payments, student loan forgiveness

Inflation knows no borders

Inflation has been battering household finances across the US, but Americans are not alone. Rising prices have been causing havoc for governments around the world and set central bankers scrambling to put a lid on it. Policy makers have been instituting aggressive rate hikes to tighten monetary policy in their jurisdictions not seen in decades.

The Bank of England just announced a 0.75% interest rate hike on Thursday increasing the rate to 3% from 2.25%. That’s the biggest rise in rates since 1989 and has warned of a “very challenging” outlook for the economy, with the economy registering 10.1% inflation in September. The economy is already in a recession which could last two years.

The European Central Bank jacked rates by the same amount at the end of October to 1.5%, its highest level since 2009. The ECB hasn’t raised rate so aggressively since the beginning of the eurozone in 1999. Inflation accelerated to 10.7% across the economic bloc in October.

The US got an earlier start than its trading partners in attempting to tackle rampant inflation, kicking off with a series of rate hikes in March this year. While starting slowly with a 25 basis points rise, the first in two years, the Fed just announced its fourth straight 75 basis points hike on Wednesday.

Inflation in the US has been slowly coming down since peaking at 9.1% in June, it still sits at 8.2 %. So far the US has been able to avoid recession with the economy expanding in the third quarter after two straight declines.