The data looked at the country’s top 23 most populated metro regions and showed that the Inland Empire experienced a 6.7% increase.
Daniel MacDonald is a Cal State San Bernardino Associate Professor and chairs their Department of Economics. “About 90% of the inflation that we saw in the recent numbers come from just these two categories, transportation, and housing,” said MacDonald.
Transportation saw a 21.6% increase and 5.7% for housing. MacDonald added, “So it is a problem, but it’s a problem that’s concentrated in just a couple areas of the economy, and not necessarily a widespread phenomenon that’s affecting literally everything you buy.”
Within transportation, the cost of fuel saw the most significant increase at 36%. Despite the concerning news, MacDonald says we should look more at the details and the bigger picture.
Macdonald said, “Gasoline prices are going up, but they were also quite low a year ago, right? So part of this is just kind of a correction of what was going on during the pandemic, now we’re coming out, and we see these very high prices, but we have to remember that a year ago gas prices were falling.”
Another significant increase included prices for meat, poultry, fish, and eggs, which saw a 14.2% jump. Other metro areas that saw the biggest increase include Atlanta and St. Louis who tied for second with 6.6%, and San Diego at fourth with 6.5%.