The Wall Street Journal looks at the Consumer Price Index data for October and finds that prices rose the most here in the Midwest:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t give state-by-state figures, but it does break down the data by subregions and population size classes within regions. The highest inflation took place in the West North Central Region, which includes South Dakota, with prices 7.3% higher in October 2021 than a year ago, and in Midwest locales with population under 2.5 million, which includes South Dakota, with 7.1% year-to-year inflation. The lowest inflation was in big cities of the Northeast, with the monthly-sampled New York metro area seeing inflation of 4.3%.
The Midwest had the highest inflation in July and other months this year. The unusual pattern of higher inflation in the Midwest does not appear to result from uniquely targeted and vengeful Bidenomics but from our greater willingness to sacrifice human life for profit amidst a pandemic:
In recent months, consumer prices have risen more sharply in the South and Midwest than in the West and Northeast, upending the normal pattern of the past several years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and analyses by Oxford Economics and Moody’s Analytics.
…Why?
The South and Midwest imposed fewer capacity and other constraints on businesses during the pandemic, though they experienced bigger COVID-19 surges.
The less populated regions attracted Americans who fled more crowded areas [Paul Davidson, “Consumer Prices Rising in South and Midwest Amid Recovery, Threatening Low-Cost Appeal,” USA Today, 2021.08.25].
…and the deeper slide in prices that hit us a year ago:
During the depths of the pandemic a year ago, prices fell more sharply in the South and Midwest because of their dependence on tourism and manufacturing, which were both hit hard by closures, Kamins says. As a result, they’re experiencing bigger price gains from a lower base [Davidson, 2021.08.25].
So covid-slackery, not blue-state Bidenism, leads to higher inflation? Hmm… I’m not sure how to put that in a reëlection campaign pipe and smokescreen it.
That land-locked states have higher inflation rates should come as little surprise as transportation costs mount but as fuel prices increase emissions should decrease reducing the rise in greenhouse gases. Because of the dearth in public transit my home state burns a boatload of fuel because Republicans are evil.
https://www.kotatv.com/2021/11/12/gas-usage-high-south-dakota-study-finds/
This inflation is caused by businesses gauging its customers and getting richer off the backs of their workers.
Kiss yer Social Security cola goodbye. Medicare announced a 14.5% jump in Medicare, almost 22 bucks per month for lower scale Medicare recipients.
Pay truck drivers top full wages with benefits for a 40 hour week. Problem solved on the bottleneck.
jerry – I mostly drive a truck – given, it’s construction specific trucking, not over the road haulage – and I am paid hourly, with plenty of OT, and good benefits. I probably make as much in 6 months to what the typical OTR drivers makes in year. Of course, the nature of the work means I only work 6 months a year as well. I’m not going anywhere as to work as things stand (52 cents/mile? No benefits? no OT? Limited to 60 hours/week? Mileage dependent on the weather, speed of dock workers, efficiency and/or favors of the dispatcher and so on? Come on man!). OTR – at the rate I’m making now – you betcha.
Most businesses lost money for two years.
Of course they’re raising prices.
*jad means “gouging” not “gauging”.
** Colorado just granted time and a half overtime pay to farm laborers. Does your state? Why not?
Larry is spot on, again. We flyover state residents pay an exorbitant transportation tax on about everything. Sometimes we pay the tax twice or thrice. (Pay for shipping, then pay a tax on the shipping service.) Sometimes the tax is merely obscured in the costs of goods and services.
It’s myth that the cost of living in flyover states is less expensive. The only thing less expensive in some, okay perhaps too many neighborhoods, is real estate.
Then the low wages (and too often 2d jobs) never balance the family budget equations vs our coastal cousins, or even in Minnesota.
Ignoring the transportation tax in flyover states dooms the corporate democrats from regaining a foothold in our region. Every time there’s a democrat in the White House the coastal corporate democrats trot out hundreds of well-intentioned reasons and initiatives to move to future fuels WITHOUT a transition strategy – that results in increasing the visible and invisible transportation taxes in flyover country. Gas prices, and the transportation taxes, are weekly toxic reminders to not support the corporate democrats.
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High prices are a cure for high prices. The long run of technological transformation is deflationary – driving down prices. The momentary increase in wages motivates corporations to accelerate buying 40% more robotics to displace workers. https://www.fastcompany.com/90696622/labor-shortage-robots-companies High gas prices motivate buyers to increase purchases of electric vehicles – especially in fleets (see the Rivian-Amazon deal). Let Cathie explain (disclosure I have positions in ARK funds): https://ark-funds.com/videos/the-switch/deflation/?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=181753832&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-80D5c8FdOodo60DwHtnYAdOqyqi2rF06wXDHJ1K4f-29ulAGuQaeJohH0Zxx44DG9Saif6ecjUJ-vmawxKG_CmX0b0PQ&utm_content=181753832&utm_source=hs_email
Thanks John.
Are you watching the spike in the price of nitrogen fertilizer normally applied to subsidized corn then ends up in the Gulf of Mexico where it kills whole ecosystems? Inflation seems like a problem only for those of us who aren’t billionaires.
It’s no longer mysterious as to why President Putin made sure Donald Trump was allowed to seize the reins then hand them over to people like Robert Mercer and Mark Faceberg.
If prices are too high, just throw a USD hail mary and beat State. It’s the only solution.
Sorry, thought I was on Five Thirty-eight
Rising costs might slow greenhouse gas emissions.
The United States gets most of its nitrogen fertilizer from the Persian Gulf but a Trump era tariff and Hurricane Ida in the Gulf of Mexico slowed the movement of product to markets up and down the Mississippi River. Anhydrous is selling for $1,113/ton increasing 38% from just last month.
High natural gas prices are contributing to the price spike so some utilities want to raise rates exacerbating a rise in inflation. According to Creighton University’s Ernie Goss rising interest rates and inflation are already affecting the supply chain.
Ethanol profit margins are at near record levels but raising subsidized corn for ethanol is a major contributor to the dead zone in the Gulf.
Covid reckllessness (and many people dying, 2,000 plus ?) and low wages fuel South Dakota’s decline into
less prosperity over all…
Sounds like China !
An article from Intelligencer (NY Mag) mentions how China and England were prospering in late 17th century (think 1690’s). England industrialized and China did not. Here’s why:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/a-world-of-high-wages-and-cheap-chipotle-is-possible.html
(Tried to copy and paste!) Economic historian Robert Allen looked at the 2 countries, who at that time has relatively sophisticated machinery and good labor forces, England went the route of high wages and using abundant coal. China went the route of cheap labor. England started the Industrial Revolution. China did not.
So the gospel of low wages (Republican Party) actually is helping depress wages in our state (for many employers, but not the advanced employers). Remember, according to the Republican Party, FDR was a Bolshevik for introducing Social Security in the 1930s. Saint Reagan was warning us in the 1950s against socialized medicine, before Medicare was created LBJ.
So what do we do, when the Democratic Party has been out of power since 1979, and seems destined to self-creating another 41 years of Republican rule?
What do we do to ensure our wages remain HIGH, and our prosperity is abounding?
Go back to England.
High wages (which led to higher productivity) and coal, which meant more could be done, as opposed to having 1,000 man power instead.
The road to prosperity is paved with HIGH WAGES!
Well, you might say, what we can do? The Republican masters took away our pandemic unemployment benefits, are trying to take away next June our Initiative and referendum rights (50% for the always Republican legislature, but 60% for the vote of the people? Very unfair.)
We can do a lot!
It’s simple! Just have the courage to do something!
Start your own industrial revolution! (Look at the technologies available to us; solar power, windpower, geothermal energy, computers, internet, AI, the list goes on and on…)
When you start your own business, or social business ( https://www.yunussb.com/about-us ) or co-op, you are starting something revolutionary that can prosper everyone!
Remember. The Republicans do not rule everything. Only the state legislature and the governor. The South Dakota courts are fair. Anyone in our 67n counties can start a business or social business or co-op 7 days a week!
The future is ours! It belongs to the people who have enough courage to say: YES! I can do it!