Gas, food prices surging amid inflation tantrum: Can wages keep up?

Economists warn inflation getting worse despite ‘positive’ jobs report

While economists react to the "flat-out great" January jobs report, they’re also wondering whether wages can keep up with worsening inflation.

"The bad news is that if you look at what's happening right now with the inflation," former Trump economic adviser Steve Moore said on "America’s Newsroom." "There's no signs that it's receding."

Both Moore and University of Chicago Professor Austan Goolsbee agreed that rising oil and food prices are starting to weigh heavily on consumer confidence.

"Gas prices being such a public price have outsized their share of our budgets, what we spend," Goolsbee told Fox News’ Bill Hemmer, "they have an outsized impact on consumer confidence."

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"In fact, it looks like it's getting worse," Moore added. "I mean, oil hit $90 a barrel. That's the equivalent of paying about $4 to $4.50 a gallon."

Though the January jobs report blasted past expectations by adding 467,000 payrolls to the U.S. economy, prices at the gas pump hit a seven-year high and the Consumer Price Index marked its largest increase since 1982.

"I don't think that in the immediate term, gas prices are going to come down much," Goolsbee pointed out. 

"And you see food prices rising," Moore said, "so I do worry about this inflation problem."

The overall "positive" jobs report still paves the way for economic recovery after the pandemic, Moore and Goolsbee maintained. 

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"By the end of this summer," Goolsbee predicted, "we could be in the job market fully back to where we were before the pandemic began."

Moore concluded: "This is one of those rare occasions when Austan and I agree that these are really good numbers."

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