The top 10 cities with the highest rates of inflation are shown on Newsweek‘s map below, and it illustrates how the rate of rising prices is not restricted to any one distinct region of the U.S.
The latest consumer price index (CPI) released by the Labor Department on Wednesday showed inflation across America stood at 3.5 percent for the 12 months ending in March, remaining well above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent. It also represents a bigger rise than the 3.2-percent annual increase recorded in February.
But analysis conducted by WalletHub looked at the CPI figures to see where exactly is struggling most with the rising cost of living and resurging inflation.
Researchers calculated an overall inflation score based on two key metrics related to the CPI, the inflation rate from a year prior and the inflation rate of the past two months within Metropolitan Statistical Areas, and weighted them to create an out of 100 score.
Honolulu, Hawaii, has been ranked as the city suffering with the worst inflation nationwide (92.19). The CPI there was up 1.5 percent in March from two months prior and up 4.8 percent over the year.
Honolulu is followed by Miami-Fort Lauderdale, which has seen the annual rate rise by 1.4 percent from January to March, and 4.9 percent over the year.
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San Bernadino rounds off the top three, 1.4 percent and 4.3 percent rises.
Other major cities, including St. Louis, Dallas, Seattle and Los Angeles are also tangling with high inflation rates.
The full list and how high the top ten cities scored is as follows:
- Honolulu, HI: 92.19
- Miami – Fort Lauderdale, FL: 90.63
- San Bernadino, CA: 81.25
- St. Louis, MO: 76.56
- Dallas, TX: 76.56. Tied with Seattle, WA: 75
- Philadelphia, PA: 73.44
- Los Angeles, CA: 70.31
- Boston, MA: 68.75
- Baltimore, MD: 64.06
- Atlanta, GA: 62.50
Why is inflation still high?
Americans across the country have been struggling with stubbornly high inflation after it hit a 40-year high at the tail-end of the coronavirus pandemic. But despite many of the COVID-era issues not longer being as pertinent, cities throughout the U.S. are still battling high costs.
“At the global level, there are two main factors: the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted supply chains, and the war in Ukraine, which increased the price of certain commodities,” Iasim Goes, assistant professor at the department of Political science at Colorado State University, explained to WalletHub. “For example, Russia and Ukraine are important grain exporters (particularly wheat). And Russia is among the world’s largest oil and gas producers.
“The war and the resulting sanctions against Russia reduced the global supply of oil, driving up its price. At the domestic level, the US labor market is tight—unemployment rates are quite low. People are consuming more. This increased demand, coupled with the reduced supply, leads to an increase in prices.”
President Joe Biden has acknowledged more needs to be done to tackle continually high inflation following the Federal Reserve report issued on April 11. “Today’s report shows inflation has fallen more than 60 percent from its peak, but we have more to do to lower costs for hardworking families. Prices are still too high for housing and groceries, even as prices for key household items like milk and eggs are lower than a year ago,” the White House said in statement seen by Newsweek.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.