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Inflation grew at its fastest clip in almost four decades last month — and rising costs are hitting the biggest areas of household budgets.
Inflation measures changes in the price consumers pay for goods and services.
It jumped 6.8% in the year through November 2021, the largest annual spike since 1982, the Labor Department said Friday. A consumer who paid $100 for a good last year would pay $106.80 for the same thing today.
That U.S. inflation reading includes prices for all sorts of items, like alcohol, fruit, airfare, firewood, hospital services and musical instruments.
Higher inflation was concentrated in a few areas like used cars and trucks earlier in the Covid pandemic — a cost burden many households may have been able to dodge. (Not all households need to buy a car.) Now, rising costs seem to be impacting a broader set of goods and services that are harder to avoid.
“In terms of core household expenses, you weren’t seeing it there [earlier this year]. You are now,” Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate, said of inflation.
“You’re not seeing price declines to offset that,” he added. “The price increases are pretty pervasive.”
Housing, transportation and food are generally the three biggest expense categories for the average American household each year, according to the Consumer Expenditures Survey.
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