The BLS April 2026 CPI release (expected May 13–14, 2026) will show headline CPI year-over-year at or above 3.5%, driven by Hormuz-disruption gasoline price transmission into the consumer basket.

All four frameworks independently produce a YES direction, which substantially raises confidence above any single framework’s individual estimate. The mechanical arithmetic is load-bearing: the gasoline YoY price change and BLS basket weight produce a ~1.3pp direct contribution that, added to a plausible pre-crisis core trajectory of 2.8–3.1%, arithmetically clears the 3.5% threshold without requiring any second-order amplification. The convergence across frameworks operating from different causal premises (class extraction, price signals, demand dynamics, institutional rules) means the prediction does not depend on any single mechanism being correct — it only requires that at least one transmission channel operates, and multiple are active simultaneously. The key timing asymmetry identified by the Keynesian framework is critical: demand-destruction offsetting effects take 1–2 quarters to materialize in core services disinflation; the April window captures the price-level surge before this feedback arrives. The primary uncertainty is the shelter/OER deceleration trajectory and whether tariff front-loading has already absorbed some of the comparison headroom. These risks justify a 0.74 confidence rather than a higher number despite the strong convergence — the measurement instrument’s behavior and OER math introduce genuine model uncertainty. Base rate from energy-shock transmission history (~0.76) is consistent with the synthesized confidence.