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Baltimoreans trying to make ends meet, amidst highest inflation rate in 30 years


Baltimoreans trying to make ends meet, amidst highest inflation rate in 30 years
Baltimoreans trying to make ends meet, amidst highest inflation rate in 30 years
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Baltimore City families are trying to make ends meet as consumer prices soar.

Miss Alberta is 76 years old and on a fixed income, trying to hold steady as prices go up with President Biden trying to bring prices down.

“Everything is going up, but they not giving you no more money,“ said Miss Alberta. “I think he [Biden] should bring [prices] down. If he can get the people to work with him, it should calm down because we can’t afford it. We cannot afford it."

President Biden was at the Port of Baltimore Wednesday with a victory lap for his just-passed infrastructure bill in Washington. It’s legislation that he believes will help bring jobs and recovery for the nation, a push past the economic woes intensified by the pandemic.

RELATED | President Biden touts infrastructure bill at Port of Baltimore, says it will boost economy

Biden’s visit comes the labor department reports prices for U.S. consumers jumped just over 6 percent in October compared with a year earlier, leaving families facing their highest inflation rate since 1990.

“What used to cost $100, now cost $106; just think of it that way,” said Daraius Irani, Ph.D., a professor and chief economist at Towson University.

Irani says we’re faced with these higher prices primarily because of demand for consumer goods.

“Then we have this issue with the supply - which basically means because we can’t get enough goods fast enough to the market - the supply kind of shrinks. You almost have a perfect storm of the supply curve shifting and the demand curve increasing, which leads to higher prices,“ said Dr. Irani.

That's leading to higher prices for things like food at stores and gas at the pumps.

“I don’t buy steaks anymore,” said one man leaving the grocery store.

RELATED | Americans watch purchasing power evaporate as inflation rises

Another woman said: “It’s more expensive than it used to be. I could get an avocado and cucumber for like $0.80; now it’s about a dollar or so.”

A woman at a west Baltimore gas station said: “These gas prices are so high, we have to map out where we’re going and how we’re going to get there. You can’t go out whenever you feel like it now."

Some economy experts, including Dr. Irani, say we could see these higher prices for at least a year before we begin to see a significant drop in the price of consumer goods.

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