‘Bracket Creep’ Squeezes Some Taxpayers Amid High Inflation

Millions of Americans are facing hidden tax increases in their paychecks because they live in one of more than a dozen states that don’t adjust their tax brackets for surging inflation.

Rising prices are sapping consumers’ purchasing power and setting the stage for the Federal Reserve to begin raising interest rates at next week’s meeting. U.S. consumer prices jumped 7.9% in February from a year earlier to a fresh 40-year high, Labor Department data showed Thursday.

But along with record gasoline prices, skyrocketing rents and food costs, residents of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, West Virginia and nine other ...