South African consumers are not alone in their daily struggle to deal with the rapid rise in the costs of living, this as American households are battling the highest consumer price inflation last recorded more than 40 years ago.
The US consumer price inflation surged 9.1% in June from 8.6% in May.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s consumer inflation number peaked to 6.5% in May.
American consumers say they are feeling the impact of high inflation on food and fuel prices.
Annual inflation in the US has jumped faster than any of the other G7 countries according to the Organisation for Economic Corporation and Development (OECD).
Economists expect the US Federal Reserve to hike rates later this year to ease pressure on escalating inflation numbers.
American consumers say they are frustrated and are struggling with the high inflation this summer.
“Oh yeah prices doesn’t really matter because what maters is what your going to eat. You have to eat, you have to get gas and you have to get around so its like the necessities that everyone has to use they cant change, so we have to pay these prices and that is why its so discouraging.”
“With the prices of gas going up everything is going up, and that means we have to work harder without them raising minimum wage and its fundamentally not good for the community, its not good for anything.”
“So, your getting the same amount of money and your having to draw up the same amount of miles but its costing you twice as much. And its affecting everybody.”
According to the latest data US inflation surged to new pandemic era levels in June jumping 9.1% mainly due to soaring petrol prices.
The higher prices are hitting every sector of the economy including food, fuel and rental prices….. some consumers are barely making it through the week.
“I’ve noticed that its gone up a lot and last time I paid fifty dollars and it shocked me because I was expecting to fill it up and go to work ‘and all of a sudden I’m paying with my credit card and its just going up and up and up. And even from just gas prices to regular stores and fast food places, has gone up by what you used to pay for regular meals has now gone up from seven dollars to 11 dollars. And the more expensive it gets the harder it is to manage my money.”
“Its very frustrating to fill up and instead of being 30 dollars its 50 now. Food has gone up a little bit.”
Meanwhile, a leading agriculture expert says American farmers are also starting to feel the impact of higher inflation and are passing their production costs to consumers.
News Director at Southern Farm Network, Micheal Davis says one of the reasons for the escalation of food prices in America is because farmers are passing input costs to consumers.
He also blames the Ukraine/ Russia war: “The thing that you are seeing in South Africa are very much the same things you are seeing here in the US, we have seen the price of Sunflower go up, we have seen the price of wheat and on top of that even before Russia attacked Ukraine we were already having extraordinary inflation for input prices for farmers, fertilizers in some places more than 300% more that it was a year ago. We are in the middle of growing season here in the US right now and we have just come through our spring planting, those prices are going to have to be passed through to the consumers.”
Economists expect the US inflation to continue raising and anticipate that the federal Reserve would hike rates to curb inflation.
Pandemic relief packages implemented by the government and increased demand for goods and services post COVID are also some the reasons for the raising US inflation.
