(The Center Square) – Inflation continues to be worse in the Phoenix metropolitan area than in the rest of the country.
Consumer prices rose 12.1% from October 2021 to October 2022 in the Phoenix metro area. During that same stretch, prices rose 7.7% nationally, Common Sense Institute Arizona reports.
Even though inflation is still high, it is slowing down in the Phoenix metro area. As of August, the year-over-year inflation rate was 13%. Since the end of 2020, consumer prices have risen 21.1% in the Phoenix area – higher than any other part of the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The high costs are making life more expensive for Phoenix area households, according to the report. Over the past 22 months, it would require the equivalent of $6,500 per year extra to purchase the same goods and services as one did before. That’s the result of rising costs of food, housing, transportation, and other products.
Housing drives much of this disproportionately high inflation in the Phoenix metro area. As of October, the year-over-year inflation rate for shelter was 18.2% – about six points higher than total inflation in the area.
If the increasing costs in the Phoenix area were to stay consistent, it would have a higher cost of living than San Francisco by 2034, even when accounting for rising costs in the Bay Area, according to the report.
However, that likely won’t happen, according to the report.
“Market relief at cooling headline rates is likely driven more by a belief that policy interventions intended to bring inflation down are reaching their apex, and less by any improvement in consumer or general economic conditions by a deceleration in already lofty price increases,” the report said.
