U.S. milk prices at a 3-year high, up 26%
Add milk to the list of foods that are getting more expensive in the U.S.
Shoppers across America are noticing inflation in prices on many everyday items, and milk got its moment in the spotlight after a CNN interview with one family went viral.
It’s true: Retail prices for a gallon of milk are up 26% at an average of $3.59 since bottoming out at $2.84 in July 2018. And if you think that’s bad for consumers, take a look at meat prices — boneless chuck roast has surged 28% in the last year — or average prices for a gallon of gas, which as of Thursday surged 61% from at the same time last year.
A number of factors are at work pointing to price increases for milk. For one, the number of dairy cows in the U.S. is plunging at a pace not seen in more than a decade, leading to weak production.
And help won’t be coming from abroad. Globally, the major dairy producers including the European Union, New Zealand and Australia, are also having dry periods for output, according to Nate Donnay, director of dairy at StoneX. Global stockpiles of milk powder, which are exported around the world and can be reconstituted into the beverage, have been dropping for four years.
Commodities from coffee to corn to meat have touched multiyear highs this year amid pandemic-induced shipping and logistics snags, as well as adverse weather in major producing areas. That’s help to push up food prices generally, fanning inflation fears. A United Nations gauge of food prices are at a decade high.
State jobless claims edge up again
Unemployment claims climbed higher in California last week, the government reported Thursday.
California workers filed 62,266 initial claims for unemployment benefits during the week that ended Oct. 30, which was up about 2,500 from claims filed for the week ending Oct. 23, the U.S. Labor Department reported.
Nationwide, workers filed 269,000 firsttime jobless claims last week, a decrease of 14,000 from the 283,000 claims filed the week before, according to the Labor Department. The U.S. numbers are adjusted for seasonal volatility.
Overall, 2.1 million Americans were collecting unemployment checks the week of Oct. 23 — down from 7.1 million a year earlier when the economy was still reeling from the coronavirus outbreak. The fourweek average of claims, which smooths out weekly ups and downs, dropped below 285,000, also a pandemic low.
The unemployment claims filed last week in California were far higher than what’s normal in a typical economy.
In January and February 2020, the final two months before COVID-related business shutdowns, unemployment claims averaged 44,800 a week in California.
The most recent total of 62,266 first-time claims in California is 39% higher than those first two months of 2020.
The one bright spot: For the last five weeks in a row, unemployment claims in California have remained well below a September spike in filings when claims reached 78,700 the week of Sept. 25.
California, however, still accounts for an outsized amount of the claims being filed nationwide.
Using comparable numbers that weren’t adjusted for seasonal variations, the state last week represented 26% of all the unemployment claims filed nationwide, even though the Golden State accounts for only 11.7% of the nationwide labor pool.
Texas urges cargo ships to ‘escape California’ ports
A month after Texas poached Tesla’s headquarters from California, it’s now trying to attract freight carriers dealing with near-record backlogs at the U.S.’ largest ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott launched the “Escape California” Twitter campaign Monday with a 30-second video telling carriers that in less than two weeks, they can reroute cargo to “one of the 24/7 functioning Texas cargo ports.”
“Choose a state that doesn’t see inflation and America’s supply-chain backlog as a good thing,” the promotional video says. “Escape California, everyone is doing it.”
The seventh-busiest maritime hub in the country, the port of Houston is the largest on the Gulf Coast. It moved about 320,000 containers in August — about one-third the number handled by Los Angeles in that month.
Abbott isn’t the first Republican governor to try to attract business amid the California logjams. Last month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also pitched the state’s 15 seaports to help alleviate bottlenecks, saying local ports “are used to operating around the clock” during a visit to the state’s busiest port of Jacksonville.