This is the best summary I could come up with:

That figure underscores the cumulative impact high inflation has had on consumer finances — even as price growth has cooled considerably in recent months.

“High inflation of the past 2+ years has done lots of economic damage,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“Real earnings remain below what they would have been if not for the pandemic and the Russian war, which is weighing on the collective psyche,” Zandi told CNN in an email on Friday.

The good news is that wages are finally starting to outpace inflation and consumer price growth has eased significantly, so much so that many investors are betting the Federal Reserve is done raising interest rates.

That’s significant, but it’s still below the peak of $536 for this year-over-year metric — a record hit back June 2022, when gas prices spiked above $5 a gallon for the first time.

“In sum, the report was encouraging,” Bank of America economists wrote in a note to clients on Thursday, adding they “wouldn’t be surprised to see another soft” inflation reading in August.

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