Whether you call it a "cookout", "grilling", or a "barbeque", cooking over an outside fire with family and friends on Independence Day is an American tradition. Every year the American Farm Bureau tracks how much the July 4th Cookout family gettogether is going to cost and it's no surprise that the cost is up this year. But what may be a surprise is how much it is up! According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), annual inflation is 8.6%. But according to the Farm Bureau survey the cost of your July 4th Cookout will cost you 17% more in 2022. It is always nice when we can get some independent data on prices. Every year Farm Bureau enlists volunteers from around the country to … [Read more...]
Inflation Adjusted Gasoline Hits New High
June 10, 2022 Update: AAA says the national average is now almost $5.00 a gallon (and much higher in places like California). That moves the blue dot on the chart below up and prices are now well above inflation-adjusted peaks! June 2, 2022 It's no secret that gasoline prices are skyrocketing. However, a couple of months ago we said that although gas prices were high and rising, they still weren't at record levels when looked at in inflation-adjusted terms. But all that has changed now as gasoline prices continue to climb upward. Today the AAA reported the highest national gas prices they have recorded. Although this is a significant development, all sorts of … [Read more...]
How Families Are Adjusting To The Crazy Inflation Rates
On April 12th of, 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that the annual US inflation rate had reached a record high of 8.5%, a level not seen since December 1981. This level of rapid price increase is being felt all over the nation and even in Europe. Those with low incomes are having the hardest time adjusting to the rapidly increasing cost of living, as is often the case. But working families across the nation are also being forced to adapt and change in order to cope with rising prices. This has impacted every corner of our society, from gas to prices at the grocery store. Adjusting to this level of inflation hasn’t been easy, and here is how some families are looking … [Read more...]
The Travel Industry, the Pandemic and U.S. Inflation
Inflation has been apparent in the United States, making many people worry about financial stability in the nation. With the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been rising prices, labor shortages, and people wary about spending. In this overview, we’ll explore how the U.S. inflation brought on by the pandemic has contributed to changing the financial and business landscape of the travel industry. At First Glance “The pandemic not only caused the shutdown of many companies and organizations but had also discouraged consumers from traveling to abide by social distancing mandates,” says Kendra Banks, a business writer at Uktopwriters. Rising airfares, price hikes on used vehicles, and people … [Read more...]
Price and Wage Changes since 2000
When we think about price changes we often think of them in terms of the changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U for all Urban Consumers). Looking at it that way, we may get the idea that price movements are monolithic i.e. that they all move together, so "prices" were up 2% or 5% or whatever, over the last 12 months. But that is a bit misleading since prices all move independently. For this reason, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes a CPI database with a breakdown of all the various components. By analyzing the various components of the CPI over the last 20 years we developed the following Chart. Click Chart for larger image As we can see … [Read more...]
How Does Inflation Affect the Cost of Insurance?
What is Inflation and How does it Impact Insurance? Well, to understand the effects that inflation has on insurance, it is crucial to understand what inflation is. Generally, there are two types of inflation "Price inflation" and "Monetary inflation" (i.e. an increase in the money supply). Price inflation is primarily caused by monetary inflation. In this article, we will use the common meaning of inflation and refer to Inflation as a general rise in prices. To understand inflation's impact on insurance, we must first understand that insurance is a monetary instrument i.e. a contract generally between an individual and a company that involves a series of small payments from the … [Read more...]
Cost of Living: LA and New York vs. The World
Los Angeles When you think of a city with a "high cost of living" you might think of Los Angeles. After all, you've probably seen some HGTV show where Tarek and Christina or The Property Brothers buy a tiny old house for half a million dollars and it needs a ton of renovations just to make it livable! So LA has to be an expensive place to live... right? Well compared to New York... not so much. According to PayScale's Cost of Living Calculator the cost of living in New York, NY is actually 60% higher than Los Angeles. Looked at another way, even though the Cost of Living in LA is 48.0% above U.S. average, Los Angeles is still only the 9th most expensive city in the U.S. when it comes to … [Read more...]
Comparing the Cost of Living When Retiring (or Moving)
Most of us dream of the day we can retire and be free from the daily grind. Retirement offers us the opportunity to remake our lives and often we can choose to live almost anywhere. In years past that often meant moving to a a warmer climate like Florida or Arizona. One of the major considerations when choosing to relocate (whether for retirement or for a job) is the cost of living. Will your pension (or paycheck) cover your daily expenses? And that's where our Cost of Living Calculator comes in handy. It allows you to choose your starting location and your proposed destination and get a comparison between the two. For instance, suppose you are tired of the cold in Albany, N.Y. and … [Read more...]
Updated Inflation Adjusted Gasoline Price Chart
With the recent drop in gasoline prices perhaps you have begun to wonder exactly how close to historical lows are we? If so we have updated our famous Inflation Adjusted Gasoline Price Chart. It shows where we stand on an inflation adjusted basis. Lowest Inflation Adjusted Price of Gasoline was $1.46 in 1998 Back in 1918 gasoline was $0.25 a gallon and by 1932 prices had fallen to 18 cents a gallon! But as we all know over the last 100 years the purchasing power of the dollar has fallen drastically so in order to get the true picture we can’t just say that the lowest price of gas was 18 cents per gallon, we need to adjust the price for inflation. When adjusting for inflation there are … [Read more...]
Gasoline Taxes by State
Yesterday we looked at the BLS' release of the July Inflation numbers and that lead to a discussion of gasoline prices and the correlation between high gas prices and politics. The first thing we looked at was the graphic of gasoline prices by state. And then we looked at the political landscape based on the percentage of the state that voted Democrat or Republican. We looked at the following graphic and noted that "the more blue the more Democrat and the more red the more Republican (which by the way is backwards compared to the rest of the world) and incidentally almost exactly backwards for the gasoline chart as well. There appears to be a very high correlation between high gas … [Read more...]