Soaring Bay Area grocery prices deepen financial woes.

Bay Area consumers get some relief in 2020 after gasoline prices plummeted

Bay Area consumers — many out of work due to coronavirus-linked business shutdowns — suffered through brutal increases in the cost of meat, poultry, fish, eggs, fruits, and vegetables during 2020, a report released Wednesday shows.

About the only relief for Bay Area consumers during a forbidding year of job losses and economic woes unleashed by the coronavirus: Gasoline prices plummeted during 2020 in the region, according to a new report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Bay Area’s overall cost of living, or inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, rose 2% during 2020 compared with

2019.

The increase for the nine-county region was the smallest annual rise in consumer prices in at least a decade, this news organization’s analysis of the federal report shows.

Offsetting the huge increases in the food-related categories were sharp declines in the price of vehicle gasoline, a drop in medical costs, a decrease in transportation expenses, and a small rise in the cost of personal services.

Among the particularly severe price increases in the Bay Area:

• Meat, poultry, fish, and egg prices soared 17.5% higher.

• Fruits and vegetable prices jumped 12.2%.

• Dairy products showed a 7.3% increase in price.

• Food costs, measuring all categories, rose 4.9%.

• The cost of food prepared at home increased by 5.5%.

But several key categories showed sharp decreases in price, which helped to blunt the headspinning increases related to food products.

Among the declines in Bay Area costs:

• Gasoline prices, as measured by the cost of unleaded gas, plunged 9.5%.

• Medical care costs declined 1.7%.

• Transportation expenses dropped 2.1%.

Some important categories showed modest increases during 2020 in the Bay Area. These included a 1.5% increase in prices for personal services.

The sharp contrasts in consumer prices for certain categories in the Bay Area come at a time when layoffs have battered workers in the region in unprecedented numbers.

In November, the Bay Area had 356,500 fewer jobs than it had in February, which was the last month before state and local government agencies began to institute wide-ranging business shutdowns to help ward off the coronavirus.

The job losses mean that even if gasoline, transportation, and medical costs are declining, the hefty increases in food prices become tougher to bear for people who are out of work.