Inflation continues to be an issue for both businesses and consumers. But what are the cities with the biggest inflation problems in the U.S.?
The U.S. inflation rate hit a 40-year high last year, but has since slowed down significantly due to factors like the Federal Reserve rate hikes. The year-over-year inflation rate was still 3.7% in August 2023, though. This relatively high inflation is driven by a variety of factors, such as the war in Ukraine and labor shortages. The government may continue its interest rate hikes in the hope of reining in inflation further.
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Inflation rates differ across the U.S, though. In order to determine how inflation is impacting people in different parts of the country, WalletHub compared 23 major MSAs (Metropolitan Statistical Areas) across two key metrics related to the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation. We compared the Consumer Price Index for the latest month for which BLS data is available to two months prior and one year prior to get a snapshot of how inflation has changed in the short and long term.
Cities With the Biggest Inflation Problems
Methodology
In order to determine how inflation is impacting people in different cities, WalletHub compared 23 MSAs (Metropolitan Statistical Areas) across two key metrics involving the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation. The metrics are listed below, along with their corresponding weights. We then determined each MSA’s weighted average across the metrics and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample.
For each MSA in the sample, we used the latest data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For some MSAs, there is a one-month lag on the data available.
- Consumer Price Index Change (Latest month vs 2 months before): Full Weight (~50.00 Points)
- Consumer Price Index Change (Latest month vs 1 year ago): Full Weight (~50.00 Points)
