Source: Workers Daily
1 pound (about 0.454 kg) leeks for $5.99; 1 pound of ginger for $8.99; 1 pound of snow beans for $5.99...
This is the price of goods sent by a Chinese American in a group of relatives and friends at the Bay Area Dahua supermarket. In her opinion, the price of these vegetables is almost the highest price she has ever had since she came to live in the United States.
Not only food, but also gasoline and house prices are also rising.
The latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that U.S. gasoline prices rose more than 42 percent year-on-year in September. Rental prices in the top 100 cities in the United States have also risen in the past 5 months.
Rising costs of living have kept U.S. inflation at a 30-year high. The Wall Street Journal commented that this is further evidence that prices may remain high next year.
Data released by the U.S. government showed that the consumer price index (CPI) climbed 0.4% in September. Among them, rising prices for food, housing and gasoline have driven most of the CPI increases.
Meanwhile, year-over-year inflation rose slightly to 5.4 percent in September from 5.3 percent in the previous month. That's more than double the Fed's average 2 percent target.
In addition to high prices, U.S. residents also need to face a more troublesome problem – shortages. In other words, having money does not necessarily mean buying goods.
According to Bloomberg, in Denver, Chicago and other places, people have recently begun to face different degrees of food shortages.
The CEO of a retail company told the media: "I never imagined that in October 2021 we were still talking about supply chain issues. But that's the reality. On any given day, there are some out-of-stock items in all categories in our store. ”
In Chicago, a food retail company has depleted much of its cargo reserves.
Labor and supply chain strains are widely cited as the main cause of these phenomena.
The current situation of the port is the most concentrated embodiment of the tight labor force and supply chain in the United States. The Port of Los Angeles is the largest port in the United States, and as of the 18th, there is said to be a backlog of about 200,000 containers outside the port of Los Angeles, and 25% of the cargo on the terminal has been parked for 13 days or more.
The Port of Savannah in Georgia is the third largest container port in the United States. At the Port of Savannah, nearly 80,000 containers are also stacked together in a variety of different forms, which is 50% more than usual.
Some media believe that the reason for the tight supply chain is that since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, Americans have spent more and more money on shopping, rather than going on vacation or going out to eat. Some experts believe that the lack of skilled dock workers, truck drivers and other loading and unloading containers in the port is also an important reason.
Whatever the reason, supply chain tensions have had a serious impact on the downstream, not only on the consumer side, but also on the production side.
According to the latest data released by the Federal Reserve, U.S. factory output fell sharpest in seven months in September, showing the continuing impact of supply chain tensions.
Many U.S. companies have had to cope with higher prices of their products. For example, daily chemical giant Procter & Gamble recently announced that it will raise the price of household goods such as oral care, razors, hair and skin care, because the rise in freight and raw material costs exceeded expectations. Previously, Procter & Gamble has raised the price of baby diapers, toilet paper and other products.
In July, P&G had estimated that the company's transportation logistics and raw material costs would be $1.9 billion in the fiscal year ending June 2022. However, this cost estimate has been raised to $2.1 billion in recent days.
Clearly, supply chain tensions have exacerbated commodity shortages and rising prices. But on the other hand, greater inflationary pressures may come from the US government's monetary policy "releasing water" too much.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in March 2020, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates sharply to near-zero interest rates and increased asset purchases, and its monetary policy easing has since been commented as "at its peak".
When large sums of money are put into the market, and even the whole people pay for universal benefits, it is difficult for American prices to rise.
Author: Dong Pei