Inflation in the U.S. jumped to the highest level in nearly 40 years, climbing by 6.8% in the past year, according to the Consumer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington saw an even larger increase of 7.5% for the year ended in November.
The D-FW area was mostly affected by energy prices, vehicle prices and transportation prices, said Luis Torres, a research economist from the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M.
“We have really strong activity here, so it’s not too surprising for our inflation rate to be higher,” Torres said.
In D-FW over the past 12 months, gasoline prices were up 70.2%, used car and truck prices were up 31%, energy prices were up 40.9% and transportation prices were up 23.9%.
“D-FW will likely continue to show a higher inflation rate than the nation and it will slow down once some of the supply chain issues start to subside,” Torres said.
There was also a large increase in the food index, with meat, poultry, fish and egg prices rising 18.4%, noted Julie Percival, a regional economist with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “It was broad-based, and there was nothing really countering the trend,” she said.
The only price that saw a drop in North Texas was “nonalcoholic beverages and beverage materials,” which saw a 0.2% drop in the past year.
National trends
The U.S. consumer price index data released Friday showed that prices rose 0.8% in November compared with October, with inflation spreading…
