Bay Area prices jump as inflation surfaces
Increases come as the nine-county region’s job market struggles to recover
Bay Area consumer prices have surged, raising the specter that inflation could pose an unwelcome challenge for hundreds of thousands of people who lost their jobs amid coronavirus-linked shutdowns.
A mammoth jump in gasoline prices appears to be one of the primary propellants for the rise in Bay Area prices, according to this news organization’s analysis of a report released on Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The price increases come as the nine-county region’s job market is struggling to recover the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost when the coronavirus-linked business shutdowns began.
The Bay Area has recovered just over one-third of the 638,600 jobs it lost during March 2020 and April 2020. The region still has a deficit of 400,200 jobs it is attempting to make up.
Over the 12 months that ended in February, consumer prices in the region
rose 1.6%, a tame increase by any measure. But over the one-year period
that ended in April, the Bay Area inflation rate had more than doubled compared with the February pace, jumping by 3.8%.
Gasoline prices appear to be the major culprit this time around, although prices for meat, poultry, fish, eggs, fruit, vegetables, and dairy products also are elevated.
Prices for unleaded gasoline skyrocketed by 38.8% during the one-year period that ended in April, the federal agency reported. That was on top of annualized increases of 18.3% in March and 1.1% in February.
The last time gasoline prices dropped on an annual basis was January, when they fell 3.4%.
During the one year period that ended in April, here are some consumer categories that outpaced the overall 3.8% increase in inflation for the Bay Area:
• Meat, poultry, fish, eggs jumped 4.8%. Over the last two years, this category’s prices have soared 19.9%
• Fruit and vegetable prices hopped 5.3% higher on an annual basis.
• Dairy products prices were unchanged.
• Food consumed away from home increased by 5.8% in April compared with the year before, possibly a reflection of a gradual re-opening of the economy that enabled more restaurants to offer dining inside the establishment.