Prices aren’t dropping and wages aren’t rising to keep pace. That is the reality on the ground. These reports aren’t meaningful at all, and I don’t think the government is taking enough meaningful action to address issues of inequality that these things cause.
EDIT: I know inevitably someone will ask "so what should be done?" and thats a valid question.
I'm not a trained economist, but I know a few people who are (perk of working in fintech!) and their general consensus seems to be that holding rates steady is smart but the political pressure to lower them will inevitably mean they are likely to get lowered earlier than they likely should be. They also seem to agree that there are components of our current economic system that simply can't be addressed through monetary policy alone and are driving some forms of price inflation but are hard for the government to quantify, such as excess fees becoming common place across many economic activities, for example. Beyond that, its alot of theories and opinions, which I don't think would add more value to this particular post.
EDIT 2: I'm not conflating how inflation works. I know it means things go up less not prices come down (thats a different word - deflation - after all), what I'm saying is observational. I am observing this: prices aren't coming down and wages aren't keeping up. That doesn't mean I think nor posit that lowering inflation === lower prices. I think lower inflation as its being presented to via the US media (driven by press releases from the white house and other government agencies) is misleading.
Not to mention, there's entire classes of things that their own indicators don't track. For example, calculated inflation excludes housing costs.