Inflation Still Creeping Up In Newark Area, But It's Slowing: Feds

NEWARK, NJ — Inflation is still creeping up in the Newark area – but it appears to be slowing down, federal data shows.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the prices of essential goods and items, rose 5.9 percent between November 2021 and November 2022 in the New York-Newark-Jersey City region, according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Over that time period, energy prices rose 17.7 percent. Food prices were up 8.6 percent. And prices for all items other than food and energy increased 4.5 percent.

However, the skyrocketing CPI seems to have cooled down over the past few months, with prices rising only 0.2 percent between October and November, and 0.1 percent the month before that, the BLS noted.

Here are some of the latest changes for the New York-Newark-Jersey City region, according to Tuesday’s report:

• Food prices increased 0.8 percent in November. Grocery items with higher November prices included lettuce, frozen and freeze-dried prepared foods, and cheese and related products.
• Energy prices increased 3.2 percent over the month with gasoline prices rising 6.6 percent and household energy prices increasing 1 percent.
• Prices for all items less food and energy ticked down 0.1 percent. Lower prices for new and used motor vehicles (-3 percent), apparel (-4.4 percent), and recreation (-1.3 percent) were partially offset by a 0.7 percent rise in housing prices.

As in the past, the November increase was caused by higher prices for energy, driven largely by higher prices for gasoline, the BLS stated.

As of Tuesday, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the Newark area stood at $3.46, according to AAA – down from $3.94 in November and a high of $5.11 in June 2022. A year ago, the average price was $3.45.

Diesel fuel was a different story, AAA reported. As of Tuesday, the average price for a gallon of diesel in the Newark area stood at $5.27 – down from $6 in November and a high of $6.42 in May 2022. A year ago, the average price was $3.69.

Inflation also appears to be slowing down on a nationwide basis, the BLS said Tuesday:

“The all items index increased 7.1 percent for the 12 months ending November; this was the smallest 12-month increase since the period ending December 2021. The all items less food and energy index rose 6.0 percent over the last 12 months. The energy index increased 13.1 percent for the 12 months ending November, and the food index increased 10.6 percent over the last year; all of these increases were smaller than for the period ending October.”

A SECOND OPINION

On Tuesday, financial information website WalletHub released a list of the “Cities Where Inflation Is Rising The Most.” Read the full list and see its methodology here.

According to WalletHub:

“In order to determine the cities where inflation is rising the most – and thus is the biggest problem – WalletHub compared 23 major MSAs (Metropolitan Statistical Areas) across two key metrics related to the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation. We compared the Consumer Price Index for the latest month for which BLS data is available to two months prior and one year prior to get a snapshot of how inflation has changed in the short and long term.”

The New York-Newark-Jersey City ranked at number 16 on the list, significantly behind regions such as the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale area and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach.

The website noted:

“In 2022, Americans are dealing with sky-high inflation, which hit a 40-year high earlier this year. Though inflation has started to slow slightly due to factors like the Federal Reserve rate hikes, the year-over-year inflation rate was still a whopping 7.1% in November. This high inflation is driven by a variety of factors, including the continued presence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and labor shortages. The government is hoping to continue to rein in inflation with additional aggressive interest rate hikes this year, but exactly how much of an effect that will have remains to be seen.”

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