US inflation may have faded but the strain it’s imposed on American households has not, according to Census Bureau polling
Just over half of respondents described recent increases in the cost of living as “very stressful” in the Bureau’s latest Household Pulse survey, published last month. That’s a slightly higher share than a year earlier — even though the headline rate of inflation has plunged by more than half in that period, to 3.7% from above 8%.
Southern states have the highest incidence of inflation stress, according to a study of the Census Bureau data by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
It found Mississippi ranked highest for inflation stress, followed by Louisiana and Alabama. The lowest rates of inflation stress rates were in Minnesota, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
That’s in part just a reflection of the regional map of US inflation — which is highest right now in the Southeast of the country, and lowest in the Northeast.
But southern states also tend to have higher poverty rates and lower incomes than their northern counterparts.
The Dallas Fed researchers found that in Texas, predictors of high inflation stress include income — the strongest one — as well as household size, race and ethnicity, and housing tenure. Hispanic and Black families are more likely to feel high inflation stress, as are renters.
“While inflation has slowly eased over the past year, the share of Texans who report feeling very stressed about inflation has changed little, consistently remaining above 50 percent,” wrote authors Aparna Jayashankar, a research analyst at the Dallas Fed, and Anthony Murphy, a senior economic policy adviser.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.