UK inflation rises to 41-year high at 11.1%

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s inflation rate rose to a 41-year high in October, fueling demands for the government to do more to ease the nation’s cost-of-living crisis when it releases new tax and spending plans on Thursday.

Consumer prices rose 11.1% in the 12 months through October, compared with 10.1% in September, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. The October figure exceeded economists expectations of 10.7%.

Higher prices for food and energy drove October’s inflation rate to the highest since October 1981, the ONS said.

The new data comes a day before Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt is scheduled to unveil a new budget amid growing calls for higher wages, increased benefits and more spending on health and education as raging inflation erodes the spending power of people across the country.

Those demands are complicating Hunt’s efforts to close an estimated 50 billion-pound budget shortfall and restore the government’s financial credibility after former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s disastrous economic policies undermined investor confidence and sparked turmoil on financial markets.

The U.S. inflation rate fell to 7.7% in October from 8.2% in September.