Consumer prices rose at a modest pace in the Bay Area in February, a sign that the years-long brutal increases in the region’s cost of living have finally begun to cool off, a new federal government report shows.
The Bay Area inflation rate, as measured by consumer prices, rose by an annual pace of 2.7% in February compared with the same month the year before, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.
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The region’s consumer prices have remained below what many economists deem to be a key 3% level for several months. The last time consumer prices were above 3% was in June 2024.
Food prices in the Bay Area rose at a subdued pace. The cost price of food was up 1.6% in the region in February compared to the year before, the federal labor agency reported.
The cost of food consumed at home fell at a yearly pace of 0.6% in February, while the price of food consumed away from home hopped higher by 4.6%.
In a reflection of the wide-ranging shortages of eggs nationwide, the cost of meat, poultry, fish and eggs zoomed higher by 6.8%. Prices for this category began to skyrocket in December and then continued to soar in January and February.
Unleaded gasoline prices jumped by 5.6% in the region during February as measured by their yearly change.
February’s gasoline prices in the Bay Area were greatly influenced by the fallout from a fire that knocked a Martinez refinery out of service.
Nationwide, consumer prices rose 2.8%, in a sign that inflation is also cooling off around the country.
The current pace of consumer prices in the Bay Area is far less than the pattern of elevated inflation that surfaced in April 2021.
Consumer prices spiked to a 40-year high in the Bay Area in June 2022 when they skyrocketed at a yearly pace of 6.8%. Prices began to retreat from their elevated levels in this region in mid-2024, according to the federal labor agency’s reports.
