Cost of Gas and Food Rose Sharply Last Month

[UpInArms]

Source: New York Times

Americans felt the pinch of higher gas prices and eroding wages last month, even as an important gauge of inflation drifted lower, government figures showed yesterday.

Over all, the Consumer Price Index rose 0.7 percent in May, the Labor Department reported. The core rate, which excludes food and energy, was up just 0.1 percent, a welcome development that encourages the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates steady.

<snip>

But for consumers, the news was hardly reassuring. Prices for staple household purchases like gasoline and food rose to even higher levels last month, effectively causing most Americans to take a pay cut. After taking inflation into account, the average weekly earnings for workers in nonmanagement jobs — some 80 percent of the work force — fell for the second consecutive month in May.

<snip>

“Everybody has to eat, and everybody has to drive to work,” said Mark Vitner, senior economist for Wachovia. “For households, the headline number truly is the more important number, and clearly the run-up in gasoline prices in the last few months has left consumers with less money to spend on everything else.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/16/business/16econ.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. The cost of food at the local A&P...

Has gone from the ridiculous to the utterly outlandish. Coffee is up 2 dollars, on a big can, across the board, for one example. Vegetable oils, up. Olive oil, incredibly up. I could go on, but it's every item.

Very bad juju, indeed. And our media ignores.

[fasttense]

7. Where do you buy coffee for $2 a large can?

Never mind, I read your post more carefully.

[yasmina27]

2. No shit!

How about stating the obvious?

[rzemanfl]

3. Yeah, but retail sales were UP! Woo fucking hoo! More b.s.

from our "leaders." That 1.4% increase in retail sales was just people buying almost as much shit as they did the prior month, but at higher prices.

[Warpy]

4. Good thing they took food and energy out of that market basket

Since the cost of plasma TVs continues to fall, we have no inflation!

Assholes!

[ixion]

5. which is not news to anyone who had to buy food or gas last month

:eyes:

[fasttense]

6. An unscientific method of calculating inflation.

When I go grocery shopping, I write a list of two columns on an 8x11 piece of paper. In 2002 two full columns on my list would average $200.00. Yesterday, two full columns cost me $268.00. That is a 34% increase in five years, or about 6.8% increase per year. The real problem is my household income has not increased 34% in five years. In fact I'm making about the same now as in 2002 and that is with three job changes.

If wages kept pace with inflation it wouldn't be a problem but wages are stagnate while inflation keeps rising. Thanks for the pay cut repukes.

[ikojo]

8. I bought a gallon of milk the other day

and it was $3.43. This is in Missouri, not so far from the cows!

[GrapesOfWrath]

10. I almost fell out yesterday at the store

Milk is now $4.09 (in Maryland)

[ozymandius]

9. What is so stupid about yesterday's numbers -

Retail sales were up. Way up. The stock market rallied on increased retail revenue. Well guess what? Gasoline and food are retail items. I suppose the idiots who parlay these reports as good news would be ecstatic if gas were $12/gallon and a loaf of bread went to $6.

[PSPS]

11. I always laugh when they "announce" these figures

Have you noticed how they couch the story? It's always with the spin.

They've made up this phony concept of a "core rate" that excludes almost everything that has gone up in price. This way, they can have an imaginary fantasyland number they can breathlessly announce as if it's "good news."