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Baking a cake was a more expensive proposition in 2022.
The price of eggs, margarine and flour rose well more than overall costs in the past 12 months—a year when inflation reached the highest level since 1981. Also recording price gains: airfares, gasoline and haircuts. Meanwhile, televisions and tickets to the game were among the few items that got less expensive from late 2021.
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The disparate price changes among the hundreds of products and services tracked by the Labor Department show inflation’s highly uneven reach in 2022. The consumer-price index, a measurement of what Americans pay for goods and services, climbed 9.1% in June from a year earlier, before cooling to a still historically high year-over-year increase of 7.1% in November.
The causes were many. As in 2021, pandemic-driven shifts in consumer spending and government stimulus collided with Covid-disrupted supply chains. New this year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and related sanctions inflamed prices for energy, food and other commodities worldwide. Labor-intensive services emerged as another inflation source as demand for workers outstripped supply, supporting wage gains.
Groceries ate a big hole in consumer wallets this year. Price gains for those food items hit the highest level since 1979 in August, when they rose 13.5% from a year earlier. Grocery prices rose 12% in November from a year earlier, the latest available Labor Department data.
Prices for eggs and margarine shot up nearly 50% in November from a year earlier, while flour and baking mixes rose 24.9%. Those baking staples each ranked in the top dozen products that rose in price the most in the past year, among those the Labor Department measures.
Shoppers got a little bit of a reprieve this year, though, too. Overall meat prices increased just 1.1% in the 12 months ended in November, a slowdown from a 16% increase in the 12 months ended November 2021.
The single product that rose most in price in the past year was also tied to food: meals at school cafeterias. The category more than tripled in price in a year when many schools began charging for lunch after offering free meals earlier in the pandemic.
When the pandemic hit, consumers shifted their spending toward goods and away from services, driving up prices for sporting goods, hardware and other goods. After Americans started to get out and about again, prices for many services rose.
Prices for sit-down restaurant meals have been about 9% more expensive in recent months than the same period a year earlier. That compares with a 2.7% average 12-month rate of increase in the two decades before the pandemic.
The cost for alcoholic drinks at bars and restaurants rose 7.1% from a year earlier in November, the most since 1991.
Airline fares increased 36% in November from a year earlier, down slightly from a more than 40% gain in October and September, which was the largest gain since 1980. The recent large gains came after prices fell earlier in the pandemic, when travel demand slumped. Plane tickets were 8.8% higher last month than in November 2019, before the pandemic began.
Buying, maintaining and fueling a vehicle was one of the areas hit hardest by inflation this year—with a few exceptions.
Gasoline prices have eased in recent weeks, but the cost of unleaded regular was 10% higher in November than a year earlier, according to Labor Department data. Troubles on the road also cost more. Repairs in November were 15% more expensive than a year earlier. If you were in a crash, body work cost 12% more. New tires? Up 10%. Insuring a vehicle, up 13%.
Purchasing a new car cost 8% more in November than a year earlier, but that figure obscures a spike that saw year-over-year prices for new cars rise 14% in April. Cost increases have receded since then even as manufacturers battled supply chain issues. Used car and truck costs soared even higher, with prices up 41% in February from a year earlier, before annual gains plunged. In November, buying used cost about 3% less than a year earlier.
The prices of everyday services leapt too. A category of services that includes tailoring, clothing rentals and shoe repair soared 14.1% in November from a year earlier. Personal care services—haircuts, for example—increased 6.8% from a year earlier, the largest gain since 1982.
This year, price gains for legal and financial services both hit the highest level since the 1990s.
Though inflation spread to most goods and services, prices for a few of them fell this year.
Prices for televisions have been declining on a 12-month basis since March, dropping 17% in November from a year earlier, bucking the trend of steady gains throughout much of 2021.
Tickets to sporting events cost 7.2% less last month from a year earlier, and are down slightly from the average level in 2019.
Renting a car or truck got a little less punishing too. Prices for rentals more than doubled in May 2021 from a year earlier, as consumers caught up on travel after vaccines became available. Prices started declining in May 2022 on a 12-month basis as costs snapped back from extremes, and were down 6% in November from a year earlier. But with prices still more than 40% higher than they were in 2019, it may take many more months of declines before consumers’ travel budgets feel less squeezed.
The cost of unleaded regular gasoline was 10% higher in November from a year earlier.
Photo:
Marta Lavandier/Associated Press
Write to Gwynn Guilford at gwynn.guilford@wsj.com and Anthony DeBarros at anthony.debarros@wsj.com
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