Yesterday, data on the wholesale “Producer Prices” was released showing an 8.6 percent increase in prices for final demand products {DATA HERE}. That is the increase in cost within the system of bringing products to market.
Today, the “Consumer Price” data was released showing a massive 6.2 percent increase in prices {DATA HERE} for goods that are currently available for sale. The overall rate of inflation is now 6.2% year-over-year.
When you overlay inflation atop wage growth, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) report now shows a decrease in “real wages” of 1.6 percent {DATA HERE}, which is the increase in weekly pay minus the additional costs to buy stuff. The working class is losing ground rapidly. Things are ugly and they are fixin’ to get uglier.
Before getting to the part where we can explain exactly how much more we can predict to pay for current products in 90 days (yes, that approximation is possible), first lets look at the actual data on the current inflation rate for products we are buying today. [Table 2] is the easiest reference for category specific review.
Overall, the prices for groceries (food at home) went up 1.1% in October and 5.4% for the year. However, several products in the supermarket have jumped massively. Beef jumped 1.9% for the month and is 20.1% higher overall. Bacon went up 2.1% for the month and is now 20.2% higher for the year. All processed foods increased at a rate about four times higher than fresh unprocessed foods.
Fuel oil went up 12.3% in October and is now 59.1% higher for the year. Unleaded regular gasoline went up 3.9% in October and is now 51.3% higher for the year. Piped natural gas went up 6.3% for the month and is now 28.1% higher for the year. Used vehicles are now 26% higher than last year, and new cars went up roughly 10%. You can scroll down Table-2 to see each category (second and third columns show year and monthly increases). It’s unnerving to see the scale of inflation while knowing it will get worse.
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