Inflation climbed back above 4% in spring 2026, then eased to 3.4%

The question: show US inflation in a chart for the past 24 months. This is headline year-over-year inflation — the 12-month percent change in CPI-U, all items — not the one-month change and not core CPI.

24 monthly observations, August 2024 through July 2026, in percent; October 2025 is unavailable in the source table and is shown as a gap.

The window low was 2.31% in April 2025, the closest the series came to the 2% reference — inflationdata.com

From January to May 2026 inflation nearly doubled, from 2.39% to a window high of 4.25% — inflationdata.com

The pullback came fast: 3.53% in June and 3.36% in July 2026, per the BLS release — dol.gov

October 2025 is genuinely missing from the source's annual inflation table (marked NA), so the line shows a gap there — inflationdata.com

The monthly rates

Month	Rate (% y/y)	Month	Rate (% y/y)

Headline US CPI-U, all items, 12-month percent change. 24 monthly rows, Aug 2024–Jul 2026, read from the annual inflation table on inflationdata.com (July 2026 release, corroborated by the BLS/DOL Consumer Price Index — July 2026 release). October 2025 is NA in the source and left blank rather than interpolated. Older years in the source table were cut for space.