Heating oil in Maine is up 80% year-over-year.
This is the kind of inflation that actually matters — not your latte, not your Netflix subscription. Energy costs hit the people who can least afford it, and they hit hard.
When essentials like heating double in price, households have to cut somewhere else. That ripples through the entire economy. Discretionary spending drops, credit card balances rise, financial stress builds.
This is why the Fed's 2% target feels abstract to regular people. Core inflation might be cooling, but try telling someone in Maine their heating bill doesn't count because it's "volatile."
Energy shocks have historically preceded recessions. Not saying we're there, but when basic costs spike like this, something eventually breaks.
This is the kind of inflation that actually matters — not your latte, not your Netflix subscription. Energy costs hit the people who can least afford it, and they hit hard.
When essentials like heating double in price, households have to cut somewhere else. That ripples through the entire economy. Discretionary spending drops, credit card balances rise, financial stress builds.
This is why the Fed's 2% target feels abstract to regular people. Core inflation might be cooling, but try telling someone in Maine their heating bill doesn't count because it's "volatile."
Energy shocks have historically preceded recessions. Not saying we're there, but when basic costs spike like this, something eventually breaks.
