Photo by Mikhail Nilov on <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-couple-sitting-near-the-wooden-table-while-looking-at-the-document-in-shocked-emotion-6963032/" rel="nofollow">Pexels.com</a>
4/10/2024
Oregon – Data from the US Congress Joint Economic Committee’s State Inflation Tracker shows that monthly household costs for Oregonians are up by just under $1,000 compared to January of 2021. The overall increase across the United States is just over $1,000 since 2021.
Oregon has continually been under the US wide increase over the last number of years, with the current gap being around $100 – $150 per month.
Source: JEC Calculations using: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Personal Consumption Expenditures; Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey; Census Bureau; American Community Survey.
Notes: Inflation costs reflect how much more the average U.S. household must pay for the same goods and services it purchased in January 2021.
To view our full results and methodology click here.
This project quantifies the inflation costs that American households are facing in the high inflationary environment that began in early 2021. We define monthly inflation costs as the additional expenditures in a given month required for a household to attain the same standard of living it achieved in the baseline month, January 2021.
We use January 2021 as the baseline month for measuring inflation costs because prices were not yet rising rapidly—the annual inflation rate in January was within recent historical norms at 1.4 percent. But soon after, consumers’ COVID-related hesitancy subsided and demand picked up, fueled in part by the American Rescue Plan Act signed into law in March 2021. Personal consumption expenditures exceeded prepandemic levels beginning in January 2021, stoking annual inflation rates of 2.6 percent in March and 4.2 percent in April.1
Because January predated these changes in economic conditions, it serves as a relevant baseline month for assessing price increases during this period of high inflation. In addition, January 2021 conveniently represents the beginning of a calendar year and marks a changing of presidential administrations and congressional leadership with new policy priorities, some of which put upward pressure on inflation.
About the Author
