"Inflation soared over the past year at its highest rate in four decades, hammering America’s consumers, wiping out pay raises... The Labor Dept said Thursday that consumer prices jumped 7.5% last month compared with a year earlier, the steepest year-over-year increase since Feb 1982. The acceleration of prices ranged across the economy, from food and furniture to apartment rents, airline fares and electricity." (ABC News, Feb 10, 2022)