October’s inflation numbers were released on Wednesday by the Labor Department, showing that last month, the Consumer Price Index rose 2.6% in the 12 months through October, an increase from September.
The latest numbers showed that prices had a slight rise in October, though core inflation, the measurement that strips out food and energy, held at 3.3%.
On a monthly basis, the CPI rose by 0.2%, the same pace as the previous three months, while core CPI rose 0.3% for the third straight month.
The data comes days after the presidential election and after the Federal Reserve announced that for the second time this year, it would slash its key interest rates.
Exit polling showed inflation and the economy were the leading factors for Americans when deciding who to vote for last Tuesday. President-elect Trump was consistently seen in national polls as the stronger candidate when it comes to fixing the economy.
As for the Central Bank, Fed chair Jerome Powell shared after last week’s meeting that inflation continues to head in the right direction.
“Overall, inflation has moved much closer to our 2 percent longer-run goal, but core inflation remains somewhat elevated,” Powell said while talking with reporters.
Compared to two years ago, inflation is much lower than it was when it peaked at 9% in 2022. Now, with things cooling, the Fed is trying to preserve the labor market through its rate cuts.
For those hoping that prices will return to where they were pre-pandemic, there’s bad news, as many goods and services will most likely remain where they are.
William Hauk, an associate professor in the Department of Economics at the University of South Carolina, shared with TIME over the summer that it remains unlikely prices will fall back to where they were in 2019.
“Of course, we’d like prices to be lower, but the problem is that one person’s spending is another person’s income,” Hauk said. “So if prices are generally decreasing throughout the entire economy, on average, it also probably means that people are making less money throughout the economy, on average.”