I find this an extremely odd and uninterpretable article for this reason. When people say that "x drives y" they usually mean that "x causes y". And inflation is by definition price hikes. So article seems to be saying that "corporate profits causes price hikes", which is meaningless since the causal direction should be in the reverse (price changes cause profit changes).
The fact that labor costs (which are part of a company's profit calculation) are considered a separate "driver" makes this even more confusing.
The fact that labor costs (which are part of a company's profit calculation) are considered a separate "driver" makes this even more confusing.