For weeks, a high-pitched panic about inflation has infused the mainstream media, most absurdly in CNN’s clip of a family struggling to keep up with the price of buying twelve gallons of milk per week (yes, twelve).

Up until recently, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell pushed back against this kind of narrative, arguing that rising prices were a short-term and transitory problem due to supply chain shocks from the pandemic that will eventually return to normal. But now the Fed has shifted course and is preparing to institute policies to “cool off the economy” — a euphemism for shrinking the money supply in order to drive down business investment and thus scale back job growth.

The definition of inflation is simple enough: an increase in the prices of goods and services. If prices rise quickly, and outpace wage growth, this can cause problems for working families — even those who don’t drink twelve gallons of milk per week. But the media narrative about rising inflation has conveniently left out several important points.