Medical care commodities inflate at a lower rate than general inflation from July to August

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The consumer price index (CPI) went down from 37.909 in July 2014 to 237.428 in August 2014, an annualized rate of 1.79%.

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The price index for medical care commodities went up at an annualized rate of 1.45% from July 2014 to August 2014. During the same period, the price index for hospital and related services went up at an annualized rate of 1.32%, whereas medical care services and professional services went down at an annualized rate of 0.46% and 3.04%, respectively.

Source: BLS

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Dwight Steward, Ph.D.

Dr. Steward regularly writes and speaks on topics involving business and individual economic damages, employment audits, and the analysis of payroll and time data in wage and hour investigations. Dr. Steward has also held teaching positions at The University of Texas-Austin in the Department of Economics and in the Red McCombs School of Business, The College of Business at Sam Houston State University, and at The University of Iowa. He has taught numerous courses in statistics, corporate finance, labor economics, business policies, managerial economics, and microeconomics.