The recent increase in oil prices is kindling activity in the oilfields of Midland, Texas. Photographer: Sergio Flores/Bloomberg
“With the cost of living out here and inflation — people just aren’t able to keep up,” said Libby Campbell, chief executive officer of the West Texas Food Bank. She has seen an increase in people seeking food who are employed, underscoring how inflation has eaten into wages.
While donors have been generous, Campbell worries the spike in fertilizer prices as a result of the war in Ukraine could prompt a food shortage in the US come fall: “It costs more to get food out here already. And that would compound the issue.”
The unemployment rate in Midland, at about 3.5%, is lower than the annual average over the past decade as the oilfields are picking up. But the related service-sector jobs are slower to return.
Melinda Hernandez, 52, lost her administrative assistant job at an energy services company in March. She's been delivering pizzas at night for $10 an hour and staffing a funeral home when they call her — she’s still making only about half her previous wage. So far she’s had no luck finding a better-paid job.
“I don’t want to fail my son and it’s my fear,” Hernandez, a single mother, said from the two-bedroom house she rents with her 19-year-old son in southern Midland, just off a rural road. She worried she won’t be able afford the kind of high school graduation party for him that she gave her older son a few years ago: a big affair for her Hispanic family.
Inflation isn’t such a concern for booming pockets of the local economy.
Most items on his menus have gone up since they were printed just a few weeks ago, so he's added a sticky note telling diners to add $2 onto the listed entrée prices. But the 180-seat restaurant still fills up every night with families and couples, and it turned its first pandemic-era profit in December.
Back in the oilfields, Garrison stood in front of an old rig that rhythmically dipped its beak into the ground. He put down roots in the community a decade ago, but now contemplates an existential question brought on by inflation: Does he want to stay in a place where it’s getting so hard to raise a family?
“How much cash do I keep putting in without knowing what will happen in the end?” Garrison asked.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.