Jared Bernstein, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, told CNN on Wednesday it's not the White House's fault for not being better prepared for inflation reaching historic heights.
Wednesday morning's release of consumer price data for December shows that costs have soared seven percent in the previous 12 months, a level of inflation not seen since 1982. President Joe Biden assured Americans in July of last year, "There's nobody suggesting there's unchecked inflation on the way – no serious economist."
CNN's anchor Jim Sciutto asked Bernstein if the White House got the issue wrong.
"No, I wouldn't say we got it wrong in the following sense. It's really important to get under the hood of these monthly inflation reports. And if you look at the change from November to December, inflation is up half a percent. That's considerably down from October and November when inflation was up .8 and .9 percent respectively," Bernstein said.
"One reason why inflation came down in December, why the rate of inflation was slower in December, is because energy prices actually fell. After growing 6 percent in October and November, they actually fell half a percent in December," he continued. "The president has consistently said there are two key components to this recovery. And here I think he is in sync with Chair Powell. One is to maintain the strongest labor market we've seen, and we are posting historic numbers in that regard. The other is to do everything we can to unsnarl supply chains, which by the way, are jammed across the world."
"This high inflation problem is a global problem and to try to bring down price pressures through those efforts," he added.