Gas and food prices likely kept US inflation painfully high in May

The costs of gas, food and other necessities likely shot up in May, giving Americans no respite from the worst outbreak of inflation in four decades.

Economists have forecast that overall consumer prices jumped 8.2% last month compared with a year earlier, according to data provider FactSet. That would be barely below the 8.3% year-over-year surge in April and the 8.5% increase in March, which was the most since 1982.

And on a month-to-month basis, prices are expected to have jumped 0.8% from April to May, up sharply from a 0.3% increase from March to April. The acceleration would almost certainly be due to gas prices, which had declined in April but leaped more than 10% in May alone and have since reached an average of nearly $5 a gallon nationwide.