Price inflation isn’t here if you don’t live under a roof.
See Also: $15 minimum wage puts American workers at top 1% of global income: finance author
The United States Department of Labor released a new report Thursday that showed the cost of renting an apartment continues to soar, and landlords are not relenting at all. Annual rent increases have outpaced price growth in other sectors of the economy nationwide.
According to the new data, rents in May jumped 3.5 percent from the same time a year ago. For the past three years, annual inflation for rents has been outpacing overall consumer prices. This trend continually eats up a considerable chunk of the average family’s budget, in many cases it can take at least 50 percent of a household’s income.
Cities with the largest growth in rents were situated in California, including Oakland, Riverside, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Jose. Denver, Portland and Seattle were other cities with rising rents and an apartment occupancy beating the national average.
Cost of ‘Basic Necessities’ Spikes
The DOL’s numbers come as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a new report that found the cost of “basic necessities,” like food, clothing and housing, is greater than inflation for the past 30 years.
Here is an excerpt from the report:
“The results presented in this section are for the experimental CPI-U, unless otherwise indicated. According to all of the experimental indexes except the base-plus-energy pair, basic necessities increased annually at a slightly higher rate than the rate of overall consumer inflation.6 During the period examined, the rate of overall consumer inflation was 2.78 percent, as measured by the regular CPI-U for All Items. In comparison, the base experimental index rose at an average annual rate of 2.91 percent from December 1982 to December 2014. The base-plus-energy experimental index increased at an average annual rate of 2.75 percent over the same period. The base-plus-energy-and-medical-care experimental index rose at an average annual rate of 2.99 percent during the same timeframe.”
The chart below shows an upward trend of the cost of everything.
Despite the entire idea that there is no inflation in the U.S., the data suggest otherwise and proves contrary to the pontification by the likes of Keynesian economist Paul Krugman and Fed Chair Janet Yellen.
This is what the Keynes admirer wrote about those who have predicted inflation in the past:
“And there’s a lot of derp out there. Inflation derp, in particular, has become more or less a required position among Republicans. Even economists with solid reputations, whose professional work should have made them skeptical of inflation hysteria, have spent years echoing the paranoia of the goldbugs. And that tells you why derp abides: it’s basically political.”
See Also: Report: Bottled water and 8 other products with the biggest markups
Perhaps Krugman doesn’t eat or live under a roof if he doesn’t think price inflation has arrived. Maybe he’s unaware of price inflation because he spends his entire days watching episodes of “South Park,” which is where he got “derp” from.
Leave a Comment