--- title: 'Inflation Update: Food, Rent, Electricity See Biggest Price Increases in Decades' description: The latest inflation report shows that prices have spiked for food, rent, health insurance, electricity and other regular expenses. authors: - name: Sarah Hansen role: Senior Writer url: https://money.com/author/sarah-hansen/ bio: Sarah Hansen is a senior writer at Money covering all things personal finance. Previously, she covered economic policy and capital markets on the breaking news desk at Forbes. education: Northwestern University, New York University at_money_since: 2021 articles: 347 covers: - Economy and Politics - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes social: - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-m-hansen/ former_staff: true editors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Economy and Politics - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2022-09-13T16:20:10.000Z' modified: '2024-01-10T13:48:58.000Z' section: Economy and Politics tags: - inflation - News word_count: 369 canonical: https://money.com/inflation-food-rent-price-increase/ type: NewsArticle source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Man grocery shopping](https://img.money.com/2022/09/News-Inflation-Watch.jpg?crop=0px%2C256px%2C2880px%2C1620px&quality=85) Inflation is still sky-high, and everyday essentials like groceries, paper products and utilities are seeing their largest yearly price increases in decades. Rent and health insurance costs are soaring too. New [data](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf) released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that consumer prices rose 8.3% year-over-year in August. That’s a slight improvement over July’s 8.5% annual inflation rate, but it’s still extremely elevated by historical standards. Many experts expected price growth to have slowed down in August, but instead prices rose 0.1% from July. High inflation is persisting despite the Federal Reserve’s attempts to slow it down by [raising interest rates](https://money.com/fed-interest-rate-hike-july-2022/), and the stock market plunged Tuesday morning on renewed fears of an impending [recession](https://money.com/are-we-in-a-recession/). The [S&P 500](https://money.com/how-to-invest-in-sp500/), an index often used as a proxy for the stock market overall, was down 3% early in the day. ## Inflation pushes prices higher and higher While Tuesday’s headline number of 8.3% is already large, some consumer staples have seen even more dramatic spikes. Grocery prices were up 13.5% on a yearly basis in August, according to the BLS — that’s the highest annual jump since 1979. The grocery category includes rapidly rising prices for essentials like flour, which spiked 23% on an annual basis, the largest jump ever in that category. Dairy prices spiked 16.2%, the biggest annual increase since 1974. Prices for household paper products like paper towels and toilet paper, rose 14.1% year-over-year, also the largest ever increase. Electricity prices were up nearly 16%, which is the largest annual increase since 1981. Meanwhile, health insurance prices rose 24.3% — the biggest annual increase ever in that category. Rent prices are up 6.7%, the biggest spike since 1986. Thankfully, Tuesday’s report also brought some good news. While [used car prices](https://money.com/new-car-prices-new-record-highs/) are still up nearly 8% on an annual basis, they actually dropped 0.1% between July and August. [Gas prices](https://money.com/gas-prices-drop-below-4-fast/) fell more than 10% on a monthly basis after [soaring earlier this year](https://money.com/states-where-gas-prices-are-spiking/). ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/inflation-food-rent-price-increase/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Inflation", "item": "https://money.com/inflation/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Inflation Update: Food, Rent, Electricity See Biggest Price Increases in Decades" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/inflation-food-rent-price-increase/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/inflation-food-rent-price-increase/", "name": "Inflation Update: Food, Rent, Electricity See Biggest Price Increases in Decades", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2022-09-13T16:20:10.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/inflation-food-rent-price-increase/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/inflation-food-rent-price-increase/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-01-10T13:48:58.000Z" }, { "@type": "NewsArticle", "headline": "Inflation Update: Food, Rent, Electricity See Biggest Price Increases in Decades", "articleSection": "Economy and Politics", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2022/09/News-Inflation-Watch.jpg?crop=0px%2C256px%2C2880px%2C1620px&quality=85", "width": 1012, "height": 569, "caption": "News-Inflation-Watch" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sarah Hansen", "url": "https://money.com/author/sarah-hansen/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/sarah-hansen/#author", "description": "Sarah Hansen is a senior writer at Money covering all things personal finance. 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