May 12, 2021
Used car prices are booming in the US. They jumped 10% from March to April, the biggest spike since 1953, when the government started collecting data. Overall consumer prices rose 0.8%, a bigger increase than expected, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But the pop in prices is not necessarily an immediate cause for concern for inflation hawks worried that the trillions of dollars the government has pumped into the economy will overheat it. What’s happening in the used-car market sheds light on why.
The pandemic strained supply chains
Americans are starting to travel around again as pandemic restrictions ease, and the extra demand for cars is hitting at a time when supply is tight. Car production has been sputtering due to Covid-19. Many manufacturing plants shut down early on in the pandemic as governments struggled to contain the virus. And although car makers have been reopening their assembly lines since then, they have been slowe