Economist breaks down new inflation report and what's driving prices higher

With the midterm elections just three weeks away, a new inflation report shows prices rising faster than expected, putting more pressure on Americans struggling with the cost of everyday essentials. To discuss what the latest numbers mean for Americans, Amna Nawaz spoke with Heather Long, vice president and chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.

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With the midterm elections just three weeks away, a new inflation report shows prices rising faster than expected, putting more pressure on Americans struggling with the cost of everyday essentials.

Prices climbed 3.7 percent over the past year and by more than half-a-percent in just the last month. It's the largest monthly increase in five months. The price increase was driven by gasoline, up 9 percent in September.

Well, let's start with that headline number, Consumer Price Index rising 3.7 percent from a year ago, rising faster than a month ago. How much of that is due to those rising gas prices?

I hope nobody's shopping for a suit. Those really jumped up. Software prices. There were just so many items, repairing a car, that rose, and that's what really caused the alarm bells today that this is way more broad-based than we thought, and that's going to take a long time to ease.

We saw core inflation, which excludes those energy and food prices, also edging higher. What does that say to you?

Yes, it says that this is more than a gas and oil problem, and that it's going to be harder to get it down than we expected.

And that combination of the higher inflation, weaker wage growth, we have talked about it before.

I'm on VA disability as a 100 percent disabled veteran. And, given, when I get a month, I used to be able to afford things easily.

It's pretty hard for us to budget for a dramatic increase in the cost of diesel. It grinds on you know. When I wake up in the morning, I'm thinking about it. When I go to bed at night, I'm thinking about it. Trying to put it out of my brain in order to sleep. But you do think about it a lot.

Heather, people are clearly feeling this pressure in lots of ways. Are we seeing consumers pull back or start to pull back on their spending in a significant way?