Monday, April 25, 2011

Feeling Inflation

Over the past 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the inflation rate has run at an overall rate of 2.7 percent. That's not really very high, according to historical standards. Inflation has generally run, for the past few decades, between 2 and 4 percent per year.

So why do prices feel like they've risen more than that in the past year? Probably because there are a few culprits, things we buy every day, that have spiked upward. Chief among these is, of course, gasoline, which is up 28 percent over the past year. The cost of beef is up 12 percent, and pork up 11 percent. Coffee has risen by 11 percent as well.

Some other things have been right around the national average: bread is up 3 percent, cheese up 2 percent, poultry up 2 percent. At the bottom of the list are things like apparel, which dropped by 0.6 percent over the past 12 months. And, just in case you're tempted the next time you fill up your gas tank, the cost of wine hasn't risen at all.

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