The Results of Inflation

In a recent article at the New York Times, they gave a statistical picture of American spending has changed over the past year. The data also looks at how consumers in America have changed their spending on specific goods. Here are some of the figures that caught my eye. In the health care category, spending on hospital services has increased 8.3% over the past year, spending on health insurance has increased 4.4%, and spending on prescription drugs has increased 4.2%. In apparel, spending on girls' clothing has decreased by 9.4% over the past year. Also decreasing are purchases of women's suits, which is down 6.0%. However, the only increase in the apparel category was an increase in spending of 8.7% on jewelry. Finally, it's no surprise that the two categories that have seen the sharpest rise in spending has been transportation and food. Americans have increased their spending 26.0% on gasoline, and 10.2% on airfare. Also there has been a decrease of 1.1% in spending on new vehicles. As for food, many basics are seeing double digit increases in spending. Americans spend 12.5% more on cheese, 13.3% on milk, 13% more on rice and pasta, 13.9% more on flour, 14.7% on bread, and 14.9% more when buying bananas. Visit the New York Times website for an interactive chart detailing all of these statistics and more. Here's an image from Experience Freak: