Inflation is affecting everyone, but it’s rising more quickly in some cities than others.
Inflated living costs recently reached a 40-year high in 2022, with the current US rate at 4.98%, compared to 6.04% last month and 8.54% last year.
Article continues after video.
For example, as ESSENCE previously reported, listed rents across the country for available increased 15% from 2021, with the average rent price being above $2,000 a month across the county. Rent in cities like Austin, Seattle, and Cincinnati is up by 30%. The median asking price for rent in Los Angeles is $3,400.
To determine which places are being slammed by inflation the hardest, data platform WalletHub recently took a look at the Consumer Price Index statistics from 22 different US from the last few months to determine how much inflation has risen in a finite amount of time. These are the top metro areas that have been most affected:
1 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA
2 Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI
3 Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ
4 Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA
5 Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA
“While spending to help those impacted by covid initially contributed some small share of the inflation, at this point the leading culprits are cost-plus pricing by firms with substantial market power and the continuing effects of supply chain disruptions,” said William K. Tabb, professor of Economics, Political Science & Sociology, Emeritus – Queens College and Graduate Center of the City University of New York in the report.
He went on to explain what the current inflation rate says about the future of the economy.
“The future course of inflation will be determined by whether fiscal policy (mostly progressively raising taxes) becomes more prominent but more important will be whether the war in Ukraine can be ended and exports from both that country and Russia resume their past norms,” said Tabb. “It should also be pointed out that dealing with the climate crisis will be expensive and will also require higher taxation to pay for the changes that must be undertaken. This is a task that, depending on how it is handled — and the price increases which will come from crop failures and rebuilding costs, assisting climate migrants for which there will in the not very distant future be many in the U.S. require. The next inflation panic will be as the cost of climate change is felt.”
