During the month of June Steem has benefited from a lack of SBD conversions. The reason for this has been that the Steem Dollar has been above $1 in price, and thus it is not generally profitable to convert them into Steem.
The lack of conversions has helped Steem to recover from the excessive inflation it experienced after the Hive fork, where millions more liquid Steem was created than Hive. This was a double edged sword though. Although it means less Steem inflation, it also meant more SBD inflation. As I wrote a few weeks ago, in the long run inflation in both Steem and Hive gets worse if conversions happen at a lower feed price. Thus if the price of Steem goes down before conversions start happening - the SBD that was built up will convert into a larger amount of inflation later.
That's exactly what it looks like is happening now. The Steem feed price is down to $0.20, the real price is below that getting close to $0.19, after spending time in the range above $0.20.
If the Steem price had risen, the lack of conversions would have been good for Steem overall, as it would reduce inflation in the long run. Instead, Steem's current 5,770,131 SBD (which compares to only 5,076,983 HBD on Hive at a higher feed price) stands to convert to more Steem than it would have if it had simply gotten converted in the last few weeks.
Conclusion: If the price of SBD keeps dipping below $1, especially if it does so substantially, expect a drastic increase in Steem inflation over the next few weeks. Hive is also experiencing excess inflation - but it has not been as bad because it was happening at a higher feed price than Steem (Hive price feed has been around $0.25, while Steem will likely be converting at $0.20 or lower).