From cars to groceries, prices are skyrocketing
Is it just a recovery blip, or a return of 1970s-like inflation?
USA TODAY US Edition
14 May 2021
In a Harris Poll survey for USA TODAY, 64% of respondents report higher prices for groceries.
Deborah Widger of Queens, New York, normally rents a car to drive to the Philadelphia area to visit her parents several times over the summer.
But she says rental car prices are up 20% to 30% since her last visit and a three-day weekend rental would cost $500.
“I’ll take Amtrak,” says Widger, a retail consultant who lost her clients because of the pandemic and lives on enhanced unemployment benefits.
Consumer prices jumped 4.2% annually in April, the most in 13 years. Is it a blip or a harrowing return to the 1970s?
