US Consumer Prices Up 0.6% In June Despite New COVID-19 Wave

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th July, 2020) US consumer prices rose 0.6 percent in June, continuing the broader theme of recovery in the world's largest economy, even as a new wave of COVID-19 infections reintroduce curbs on some businesses that just emerged from lockdowns.

The Consumer price Index for June grew slightly more than the 0.5 percent expansion forecast by economists surveyed by US media, data published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed on Tuesday.

Excluding the often-volatile categories of food and energy, the so-called core prices rose 0.2%, compared with a 0.1% decline in May.

The US economy shrank 5 percent in the first three months of 2020 for its sharpest decline since the financial crisis of 2008/09, as most of the 50 states in the country went into lockdown to stem the outbreak of the COVID-19.

While businesses have largely reopened over the past two months,� economists still warn of a double-digit recession for the quarter ended June.

Record high US coronavirus disease infections in a day have cast doubts over the pace of economic reopenings from lockdowns, as well as the resumption of school in the fall season. COVID-19 deaths in the United States have started to slowly rise too, following the�urge in new caseloads from the middle of June.� Nearly 3.5 million positive cases of coronavirus have been reported in the United States while fatalities from the pandemic have breached 138,000.