Americans are coming out of retirement as inflation continues to ravage the U.S. economy

New data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has shown that Americans are leaving retirement due to historically high inflation and an increasingly tight job market.

According to the data, although the number of retired Americans surged from 28.3 million in February 2020 to 31.6 million in October 2021, higher prices and a precarious economic situation has forced many Americans out of retirement.

Furthermore, a new report from Indeed has shown that as of March 2022, roughly 3.2% of workers who retired last year are now once against employed – a phenomenon economists at the job search company has said was last seen during the 2007 Financial Crisis.

Although consumer price inflation rates stayed within range of the Fed’s long-term 2% rate target, today’s economy has been marked by unprecedented inflation surges driven by the aftermath of the global coronavirus pandemic and the consequences lockdowns on the economy.

“It is hard to rule out the influence of waning concerns about the pandemic and faster inflation, and they are surely factors,” Indeed acknowledged. “But it’s not clear that they are the main reasons.”

From October 2021 to March 2022 alone, more than 850,000 Americans returned to the job market, according to the Federal Reserve. Over the same period, inflation increased by another 2.3%, after already having risen from 1.4% in January 2021.

Polemically, experts have warned that inflation isn’t going anywhere in the near future.

“Inflation, as we all know, when it gets in the system, it’s very hard to get it out,” billionaire investor David Rubenstein said on Fox News. “It takes a long time to get it out, can take a couple of years.”

“So now I don’t think the inflation rate this year will be what it was last month or so. I don’t think we’re going to have 8% annualized rate of inflation, but I suspect something around 5% is probably not unlikely, maybe even 6%,” he added.

Milken Institute Chief Economist Bill Lee agreed, telling the Daily Wire that inflation would be “well over 3.5%” for the next five years.

“One of the things that we’ve seen is that inflation has, you know, very direct impacts on Americans, on American families and American businesses,” Director of the Congressional Budget Office Phillip Swagel told Fox News Digital. “It also has implications… for the budget. For American families, the high inflation that we’ve seen the highest in decades has meant higher prices for food, for travel, for gasoline. It means that family incomes don’t go as far. Family budgets are stretched.”

To curb rising price levels, the Federal Reserve increased interest rates by a half point on Wednesday — which marked the largest rate hike since May 2000 and followed a quarter point increase from near-zero levels two months ago.

“Inflation is much too high,” Fed chief Jerome Powell said at a Wednesday news conference. “We understand the hardship it is causing, and we’re moving expeditiously to bring it back down. We have both the tools we need and the resolve that it will take to restore price stability on behalf of American families and businesses.”