Prices Continue to Rise as the Midterms Approach

This is Vote This Time’s third update on prices. The bottom line is that prices continue to rise as the midterms approach.

It’s best to see the three lists in isolation. For instance, the changes in the price of milk between the reports are not calculated from the previous report. The goal is to present trend lines for each category and the economy overall, not to provide precise prices.

It is a coincidence that I’m posting this the day of the release of the Consumer Price Index for September by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The press release said that the index rose 0.6% for September and 3.7% for the past year.

The numbers were not good:

The index for gasoline rose 9.1 percent in September, accounting for over half of the monthly all items increase. The energy index increased 5.2 percent over the month following a 2.1-percent increase in August. The shelter index rose 0.4 percent in September after rising 0.3 percent in August. The index for food was unchanged in September, as the index for food away from home increased 0.2 percent and the index for food at home fell 0.1 percent.

Core inflation — the percentage with volatile food and energy costs not included — rose 0.3%, the same as it did in August. The press report said that prices were higher in the recreation, used car and truck, education, airline fares, medical care and apparel sectors. Communications and a “small number” of major indexes decreased last month.

Here is an explainer on the CPI from the Central Reserve Bank of Cleveland. The first snapshot was posted in March and the second in August.

(Image: arbyreed via Flickr)