HOUSTON (KIAH) – Inflation is everywhere – from the gas pump to the grocery store, you’ve most likely felt the sting in your wallet by now.
However, a new study suggests depending on where you live, inflation may be hitting your area harder than others.
A recent ranking from WalletHub, a personal finance website, sought to rank “cities where inflation is rising the most.” Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, WalletHub compared 22 major Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) based on metrics involving the consumer price index, which is used to measure inflation.
Those metrics concerned changes to the consumer price index from the latest month versus two months before, and changes to the consumer price index from the latest month versus a year ago.
WalletHub included two Texas MSAs in its ranking of the country’s top 10 with inflation rising “the most,” including the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land MSA at No. 7, and the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA at No. 10.
Below is the list of the top 10 MSAs where inflation is rising the most, according to WalletHub:
- Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD
- Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI
- Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ
- Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA
- Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA
- Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL
- Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX
- San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA
- Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD
- Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX
Based on CPI data, WalletHub found the change in the consumer price index for Houston-Woodland-Sugar Land MSA between January and March equaled a growth of 1.9 percent, while its year-over-year change was 5.2 percent.
WalletHub also found the change in the consumer price index for Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA between January and March saw a growth of 1.3 percent, whereas its year-over-year change was 5.8 percent.
Data from the Texas Comptroller’s office shows Texas’s CPI inflation pacing just ahead of the national average year-over-year, through February.
The government said Wednesday that consumer prices nationwide rose just 0.1% from February to March, down from 0.4% from January to February and the smallest increase since December.
As goods prices have risen more slowly, helping cool inflation, costs in the nation’s services sector — everything from rents and restaurant meals to haircuts and auto insurance — have jumped, keeping core prices elevated.
“It’s comforting that headline inflation is coming down, but the inflation story has had some shifts under the hood in the last couple of years,” Sonia Meskin, head of U.S. economics at BNY Mellon’s investment division, told the Associated Press this week. “Overall inflation still remains much too strong.”
Even so, the March data offered some signs that suggest inflation is slowly but steadily headed lower. Rental costs, which have been one of the main drivers of core inflation, rose at the slowest pace in a year. And grocery prices fell for the first time in 2 1/2 years.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
