Fuel costs proceed to rise.
Picture by Dean Moses
The whole lot retains getting dearer in NYC—eggs, baked items, electrical energy—as shopper costs within the Large Apple and close by areas jumped almost 1% final month, in accordance with a authorities report launched on Wednesday.
Client costs within the New York-Newark-Jersey Metropolis space elevated 0.7% over the month in January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) stated in its January 2025 report that got here out on Feb. 12.
Nevertheless, meals costs remained unchanged in January, as costs at residence and eating out had been flat. The data comes as a shock, as high-priced grocery gadgets equivalent to eggs proceed to dominate the headlines.
Economists and elected officers alike have attributed the egg worth enhance to the continuing hen flu outbreak throughout the nation that has devastated poultry farms the place contaminated birds had been detected.
In the meantime, power costs elevated 2.6% over the month, with fuel costs not far behind, with a 1.7% enhance throughout the identical interval.
Looking all year long, the metro space’s meals costs rose 1.7%; power costs went up 3.3%. All gadgets minus—meals and power—elevated 4.4%.
However shelter is a giant concern within the New York space and throughout the nation, in accordance with Bruce Bergman, an economist on the BLS, which is a part of the U.S. Division of Labor.
“Locally rent increases are still somewhat elevated,” he stated. “Residential rent was up 5.5% over the year, compared to 4.2% nationwide. And the New York number is not that far off from what it was in 2023 and 2024. In contrast, shelter and rent increases have decelerated faster nationally than in the New York area.”
Shelter has a giant weight within the shopper worth index, Bergman added.
“But even among other expenditure items, we are seeing higher local price increases—the ‘all items less shelter’ index was up 3.1% in New York, compared to the 2.2% average for our nation’s urban areas,” he stated.
