Psaki on Inflation: ‘The American People Are Not Looking at Cost-to-Cost Comparisons from This Year to Two Years Ago’

EXCERPT:

PSAKI: "Well, it requires us explaining, and through working with all of you as well, that the cost of meat is also related to competition and the small number of large meat producers who have a dominance over the market, and the fact that a lot of these issues are not as simple as a one sentence explanation, and that different industries have different issues in the supply chains, different issues that are causing some increases in prices, and also because we all understand the American people are not looking at cost-to-cost comparisons from this year to two years ago, they’re looking at cost-to-cost comparisons to their checkbooks from 8 months ago or 12 months ago. And even though factually, if you look back to two years ago, things may be comparative, that's not how people look at things. So, our objective here is to tackle each of these issues with the approach that we think will help address it in the shortest term."