As inflation concerns grow, ABC releases Price Tracker to help consumers identify cost trends
Inflation has ticked up in recent months, rekindling price concerns that stretch back to a pandemic-era explosion of household costs. Eggs, beef and electricity are among the prices that have climbed in recent years.
ABC Owned Television Stations' data team released a Price Tracker that details current and historical regional prices for groceries, utilities, housing and gas for the 100 largest metro areas nationwide.
Price increases vary from place to place, meaning consumers navigate pocketbook woes differently depending on where they live.
A bag of potato chips in the Midwest costs less, on average, than one in the Northeast, while housing prices in San Francisco and New York are much steeper than those in Cleveland, Ohio.
Users can find out where prices stand in their local area relative to the national average; or look up localities nearby to better understand how prices vary in their region.
The Price Tracker also sheds light on national trends. The typical price of a single-family home in the United States is about $368,000, jumping roughly 13% over the past 5 years and 38% over the last decade, the ABC News data team found.
Meanwhile, average monthly electric bills for residential customers run about $165 per month. The price level stands 14% higher than it did in January 2020 but about 6% lower than in 2015, when adjusted for inflation, according to the most current data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on the Price Tracker.
The average price of a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline is $3.18, which amounts to an 18% jump from five years ago, according to the most recent available data on the Price Tracker.
The team behind the Price Tracker opted to focus on the 100 largest metro areas because some data for smaller localities is inconsistent. Roughly two-thirds of the U.S. population lives in the 100 biggest metro areas.
The Price Tracker draws predominantly from U.S. government statistics, though the tool uses figures from online-listing firm Zillow for housing prices. The Price Tracker updates automatically to incorporate the most recent data.
