How soaring inflation forces stark choices - Alaska Public Media

consumer prices in March were 8.5% higher than a year agoWhile no one likes paying more for haircuts or hamburgers, high inflation is especially painful for low-income families, whose spending is heavily weighted toward necessities such as gasoline and groceries, which have seen some of the largest price hikes.These families have little fat in their household budgets to start with, so when inflation cuts into their limited spending power, something has to give.

“I’m not making it to the end of the month anymore,” she adds. “Even getting a Big Mac now — a Big Mac meal is $8 — I can’t afford it.” “You have to be a little more cautious in what you cook and things you make and things you buy,” she says. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, gasoline prices jumped to $4.33 a gallon in March — an all-time high, not adjusting for inflation.

Kemp, the widow with the increased heating bill, has also cut back on driving to Fort Smith, Ark., about 35 minutes from her home in eastern Oklahoma. Federal Reserve Gov. Lael Brainard at her nomination hearing in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 13 after being proposed by President Biden to serve as the central bank’s vice chair. Federal Reserve officials are well aware of the toll that inflation is taking, especially on lower-income families, a point that Fed Gov. Lael Brainard highlighted in a“While all Americans are confronting higher prices, the burden is particularly great for households with more limited resources,” Brainard said.

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