National Affairs: Creeping Up

The restive Consumer Price Index was still giving the Administration—and the rest of the U.S.—the creeps. Setting a new record for the fifth month in a row, it crept up in January to a mark of 118.2 (the 1947-49 average = 100), thus stood .2 above December, 1.1 above September, and a sharp 3.6 above January 1956. The 3.6 climb in a single year seemed all the more creepy by contrast with the index's behavior during the first three Eisenhower years: twitching upward in some months and downward in others, it gained only .7 from early 1953 to early 1956.

For 1.4 million wage earners in automobile, aircraft, farm equipment and other industries, the index's latest rise will bring escalator-clause pay boosts averaging 10 an hour. But a lot of less lucky American workers, and millions of people living on fixed incomes, are finding that, with prices going up, their standard-of-living escalators are going down. And the short-range outlook. Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Ewan Clague glumly predicted last week, is that the index will continue to "creep up like this."