No Matter What’s in Your Food Basket, the Price Keeps Rising Fast

Year-Over-Year Price Increases

• Meat, Poultry, Fish, and Eggs: 11.7% 
• Cereals and Bakery: 13.8%
• Dairy: 13.5%
• Fruits and Vegetables: 8.1%
• Beverages: 11.9%
• Other Food at Home: 14.4%
• Away From Home: 7.7%

That slow and steady “away from home” red line, now at 7.7%, is interesting. Does that match your experience? 

And what about tips? The default tip on payment devices went from 15% to 18% to 20% with 25% now a selectable option.

CPI With a Spotlight On Food

Year-Over-Year Chart Details 

• CPI: 9.1%
• CPI Excluding Food: 8.8%
• Food: 10.4%
• Food at Home: 12.2%
• Food and Beverage: 10.0%

Got Soup?

“Campbell’s Soup putting through their THIRD price hike this year. Announced June 17th – that’s anecdata not in CPI yet. Food inflation still has momentum.”

Time to Pity Fed Chair Jerome Powell?

Commodity Price Update

CPI Energy

• Energy is 8.67 percent of the CPI. Gasoline is 4.82 percent of the CPI.
• For the month, the energy index rose 7.5 percent over the month and contributed nearly half of the all items increase, with the gasoline index rising 11.2 percent.
• The energy index rose 41.6 percent over the past 12 months.
• The gasoline index increased 59.9 percent over the span, the largest 12-month increase in that index since March 1980. 

The BLS release stated “The energy index rose 7.5 percent over the month and contributed nearly half of the all items increase.”

I calculated 64% and confirmed with the BLS just now at 63.8%. 

Relief on the Way?

Energy relief is on the way. The AAA current average gasoline price is $4.631. The peak price was $5.016 on June 14. That’s a 7.7% decline from the peak. 

I am not sure if significant food relief is on the way or how fast. Much depends on whether current food prices reflect all of the price spikes. If not, food may stabilize for a while rather than drop.

What About Shelter?

Owners’ Equivalent Rent (OER) and Rent of Primary Residence constitute 23.66 percent and 7.24 percent of the CPI respectively.

OER is the mythical price one would pay to rent one’s own house from oneself unfurnished, without utilities. 

The combined weight of OER and Rent is 30.8 percent of the CPI. I expect rent to keep rising for a while. 

For the month, OER was up 0.7 percent and rent of primary residence 0.8 percent. 

The contribution to June CPI from these shelter components is roughly ((0.7 * .2366) * 100) + ((0.8 * 0.0724) * 100) = 16.6 + 5.8 = 22 percent of this month’s jump. 

Those numbers have rounding errors. The two components are 16.5 + 5.7 = 22.2 percent.

Nationally, Rent is Still Rising, Compounding the Fed’s Recession Woes

On July 4, I wrote Nationally, Rent is Still Rising, Compounding the Fed’s Recession Woes

I have been in contact with ApartmentList.Com and will have an update on shelter later this week or next. 

Also, please see my previous post Consumer Price Index Jumps Another 1.3 Percent, Much More Than Than Expected.

This post originated at MishTalk.Com.

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