- Few areas of the country have seen inflation as bad as in the South, where prices have risen across the 16-state region by an average of 8.4% from a year ago.
- But prices aren’t the only thing heating up in the South and West, as Georgia and Arizona voters find themselves in a fierce 2022 midterm election cycle.
- Some residents say rising food, gasoline and housing costs are likely to play a factor in how they vote later this year.
- The Labor Department’s March 2022 CPI consumer price report is due out Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Matthew Rice doesn’t have to look hard for signs of inflation in Savannah, Georgia.
A gallon of gas cost $2.79 a few months ago, he said. Now it runs him more than $4.
“And, of course, when the price of gas goes up, the price of products goes up,” the 45-year-old added. “So yeah. It’s played a role in our household.”
Rice, a longtime fan of MLB’s Atlanta Braves and a graduate of Armstrong State University, now known as Georgia Southern University, is one of the tens of thousands of Americans who say rising prices are straining their household budgets and shaping how they think about this year’s elections.
Gradual but steady jumps in the costs of groceries, housing and gas have forced consumers like Rice, who manages reservations for an RV park on nearby Tybee Island, to change how they spend money.
www.cnbc.com/2022/04/11/us-inflation-could-affect-2022-senate-midterms-in-georgia-arizona.html