Inflation ticks up in May

U.S. inflation picked up a bit last month as higher prices for groceries and some imported goods were largely offset by cheaper gas, travel services, and rents.

Consumer prices increased 2.4% in May compared with a year ago, according to a Labor Department report released Wednesday. That is up from a 2.3% yearly increase in April.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 2.8% for the third straight month. Economists pay close attention to core prices because they generally provide a better sense of where inflation is headed.

The cost of groceries, toys and games, and large appliances rose, which could reflect the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Yet the price of new and used cars, clothes, airfares, and hotel rooms all dropped from April to May.

On a monthly basis, overall prices ticked up just 0.1% from April to May, down from 0.2% the previous month, with inflationary pressures appearing muted. Core prices also dropped to 0.1% from 0.2%.

“You can point to seeing tariffs in this report, but the more important message is that you’re seeing inflation soften enough elsewhere that overall, price pressures continue to subside for the U.S. consumer,” Sarah House, an economist at Wells Fargo, said.

Google offers buyouts

Google has offered buyouts to another swath of its workforce across several key divisions in a fresh round of cost cutting coming ahead of a court decision that could order a breakup of its internet empire.

It’s not clear how many employees are affected, but the offers were made to staff in Google’s search, advertising, research and engineering units, according to The Wall Street Journal. Google employs most of the nearly 186,000 workers on the worldwide payroll of its parent company, Alphabet Inc.

— Boston Herald Wire Services