Consumer Price Index drops
A run on certain grocery store items in Colorado and around the US has translated into a slim rise in prices.
Agriculture Department Economist, Gianna Short says, shoppers were seeing empty shelves of some weekly staples.
SHORT: “If we look at the prices, we weren’t seeing big price swings. The food sector, especially at the grocery stores, remained relatively stable. Egg prices only went up 1.7%. Ground beef went up 1.4%.”
Short tells the USDA News service that the most recent Consumer Price Index shows an overall drop of .4% of all goods in the economy. That’s the steepest monthly decline in more than 5 years.
Overall, food grocery prices did go up but, just by .5%. Some items did see steeper increases. Wholesale prices for eggs for example, were 3 times as expensive but at the local stores
Milk prices remained steady.
So stores may be short on supplies of some products but consumers are not seeing a huge spike in prices.
Overall prices in the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood area, as measured by the Consumer Price Index declined 0.3 percent. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics food prices rose 0.5 percent. Prices for food at home increased 0.7 percent and prices for food away from home rose 0.3 percent for the same period.
Over the year, food prices were 3.5 percent higher. Prices for food at home rose 2.5 percent since a year ago, and prices for food away from home rose 4.6 percent.
