For most of the past two decades, inflation has hovered around 2%. A lot of people expected that to continue. Then came the pandemic and spikes in demand for a lot of products. Don't forget stimulus checks and interest rates to basically zero.
If the Fed had a mantra to go along with its mandate, it might well be "two percent." We look into how that became the target inflation rate, why some economists are calling for a change and how the inflation rate becomes unanchored.