With unprecedented inflation rippling across America and affecting Americans from all walks of life, the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday hiked interests, the first of several likely increases over the next two years.U.S. WEST HARDEST HITAccording to Labor Department data, U.S. consumer prices rose by 7.9 percent in February, with necessities such as food, housing and energy crossing historic milestones. Americans' recent experiences with the highest U.S. inflation in the past four decades vary depending on where they live.The region hit hardest is the Rocky Mountain West, where annual inflation hit 9 percent, primarily driven by rising home and rent prices, according to a study released by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee early this month.In Utah, families are spending 511 U.S. dollars more per month than a year ago, the study revealed, a stark contrast to the 331-dollars inflationary hike affecting the U.S. southeast region.Housing costs in Utah are jumping, but not as sharply as those in neighboring Colorado, where the median sales price for a Denver metro home was 615,000 dollars in February, the highest ever and up 14 percent from a year ago, local media reported last week."One of the challenging and frustrating things about inflation is that it tends to hit those who have the least the hardest," Phil Dean, public finance senior research fellow at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, told Fox 13.Utah home prices are up 30 percent, while rent is 10 percent to 15 percent higher than last year, a "mismatch between supply and demand - we haven't built enough houses for the number of families that we have," said Dean, who deemed housing hikes as inflationary triggers.Among many goods and services jumping in cost, the price of meat rose by 20 percent. Dean said that "right now, people will need to be conscious about what they spend their money on."The causes of rampant inflation include ongoing problems with the nation's supply chain, and the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftershocks. The Wall Street Journal said that increasing wages have also caused employers to raise prices to cover their bigger labor bills.INTEREST RATE HIKESThe Fed on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate, the federal funds rate, by a quarter percentage point to a range of 0.25-0.5 percent from near zero. This marked the Fed's first rate hike since 2018 and a major step in exiting from the ultra-loose monetary policy enacted at the start of the pandemic."Inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher energy prices, and broader price pressures," the Fed said in a statement after a two-day policy meeting, adding the Ukraine crisis and related events are likely to "create additional upward pressure" on inflation."We're not going to let high inflation become entrenched. The costs of that would be too high," Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday afternoon at a virtual press conference, adding every Fed meeting is "a live meeting" regarding raising interest rates.The Fed's quarterly economic projections released Wednesday showed that most Fed officials expect the federal funds rate to rise to 1.9 percent by the end of this year and to around 2.8 percent by the end of 2023.That implies a total of seven quarter-percentage-point rate hikes this year and another three or four next year. It is a more aggressive pace of hiking than Fed officials projected last December, when their median projection was just three rate increases this year.With unprecedented inflation rippling across America and affecting Americans from all walks of life, the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday hiked interests, the first of several likely increases over the next two years.U.S. WEST HARDEST HITAccording to Labor Department data, U.S. consumer prices rose by 7.9 percent in February, with necessities such as food, housing and energy crossing historic milestones. Americans' recent experiences with the highest U.S. inflation in the past four decades vary depending on where they live.The region hit hardest is the Rocky Mountain West, where annual inflation hit 9 percent, primarily driven by rising home and rent prices, according to a study released by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee early this month.In Utah, families are spending 511 U.S. dollars more per month than a year ago, the study revealed, a stark contrast to the 331-dollars inflationary hike affecting the U.S. southeast region.Housing costs in Utah are jumping, but not as sharply as those in neighboring Colorado, where the median sales price for a Denver metro home was 615,000 dollars in February, the highest ever and up 14 percent from a year ago, local media reported last week."One of the challenging and frustrating things about inflation is that it tends to hit those who have the least the hardest," Phil Dean, public finance senior research fellow at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, told Fox 13.Utah home prices are up 30 percent, while rent is 10 percent to 15 percent higher than last year, a "mismatch between supply and demand - we haven't built enough houses for the number of families that we have," said Dean, who deemed housing hikes as inflationary triggers.Among many goods and services jumping in cost, the price of meat rose by 20 percent. Dean said that "right now, people will need to be conscious about what they spend their money on."The causes of rampant inflation include ongoing problems with the nation's supply chain, and the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftershocks. The Wall Street Journal said that increasing wages have also caused employers to raise prices to cover their bigger labor bills.INTEREST RATE HIKESThe Fed on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate, the federal funds rate, by a quarter percentage point to a range of 0.25-0.5 percent from near zero. This marked the Fed's first rate hike since 2018 and a major step in exiting from the ultra-loose monetary policy enacted at the start of the pandemic."Inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher energy prices, and broader price pressures," the Fed said in a statement after a two-day policy meeting, adding the Ukraine crisis and related events are likely to "create additional upward pressure" on inflation."We're not going to let high inflation become entrenched. The costs of that would be too high," Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday afternoon at a virtual press conference, adding every Fed meeting is "a live meeting" regarding raising interest rates.The Fed's quarterly economic projections released Wednesday showed that most Fed officials expect the federal funds rate to rise to 1.9 percent by the end of this year and to around 2.8 percent by the end of 2023.That implies a total of seven quarter-percentage-point rate hikes this year and another three or four next year. It is a more aggressive pace of hiking than Fed officials projected last December, when their median projection was just three rate increases this year.
