American consumers faced their sharpest price increases in nearly three years last month, with the Consumer Price Index rising 3.8% year-over-year in April, up from 2.4% in February, according to new data released by the US Department of Labor. The primary driver is a dramatic surge in fuel costs: gasoline prices climbed 5.4% in a single month and are now 28% higher than a year ago, a spike directly linked to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas passes — following US and Israeli military strikes on Iran roughly ten weeks ago.

The impact extends well beyond the fuel pump. Electricity bills, food prices — including coffee, beef and vegetables — airline tickets and some medical costs have all risen sharply. Critically, inflation is now outpacing wage growth for the first time in three years: with prices rising at 3.8% against wage gains of approximately 3.6%, many American households are effectively losing ground. Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, a major US financial institution, described inflation as