Inflation has fallen in the final months of the presidential campaign, which could impact a tight race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
More than half of adults cite inflation as one of the nation’s top problems, making it by far the most important concern on issues such as immigration, crime and abortion, poll finds Ipsos carried out at the end of last month.
Nationwide price increases have largely returned to normal. However, the presidential race is widely expected to hinge on results in seven hotly contested battleground states, putting the focus on the inflation situation in these key places.
An ABC News analysis found that inflation rates vary widely among four major cities located in battleground states: Detroit, Michigan; Phoenix, Arizona; Atlanta, Georgia; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In each of these states, the average polling margin between the two candidates is no more than two percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Here’s what you need to know about inflation in swing state cities and what it means for the election:
Detroit, Michigan
Consumer prices rose 3.5% in Detroit in the year ending in August, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This figure is one percentage point higher than the national average and is the highest inflation rate of the four cities ABC News examined.
The surge in prices is largely due to rapidly rising housing costs, Gabriel Ehrlich, an economist at the University of Michigan, told ABC News. This trend marks a recent turnaround from the low housing prices that took hold in the city in the wake of the 2008 Great Recession.
At the time, a crisis in the auto industry caused rising unemployment, an exodus from Detroit and a decline in demand for housing. However, as Detroit has since improved its economic performance, the population began to grow and housing prices began to skyrocket. Housing costs climbed 6.2% in Detroit in the year ending in August, more than a percentage point higher than the national average.
Although improving economic performance has contributed to rising housing prices, that glimmer of hope offers little comfort to city residents paying high costs, Ehrlich said.
“It’s a hard sell,” he added.
Phoenix, Arizona
In Phoenix, the inflation rate stands at 2.3 percent, according to BLS data for August, the most recent month on record. This rate of price increase is slightly lower than the national average.
As in Detroit, real estate prices play a significant role in cost dynamics in Phoenix – but it’s for the opposite reason. House prices there are increasing at a rate of 3.5%, well below the national average of more than 6%.
The moderate pace of Phoenix’s current home price increase marks a welcome relief after a series of spiraling costs, Lee McPheters, director of the JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center at Arizona State University, told ABC News . Since 2017, housing prices in the Phoenix area have doubled, he added.
Price increases have slowed, however, as Phoenix has made a concerted effort to accelerate housing construction and address the supply shortage.
Phoenix is expected to build about 20,000 apartments in 2024, giving it the fourth-highest apartment construction rate of any U.S. city, according to a RentCafe study released in August. That total would represent an 88 percent increase over the apartment construction rate reached two years ago, according to the Maricopa Association of Governments.
“There are of course the same housing shortage issues in Phoenix as there are across the country,” McPheters said. “The difference here is that Arizona responded.”
A customer walks past a display of fresh eggs at a grocery store on September 25, 2024 in San Anselmo, California.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Atlanta, Georgia
In August, Atlanta’s inflation rate stood at 1.7%, which is nearly a percentage point lower than the national average and the lowest pace of any swing-state city examined by ABC News.
Prices in Atlanta have increased at a slower rate than the national average for a range of essential goods, including housing, meat, poultry, fish and eggs.
Gas prices have fallen across the country over the past year, but they have fallen even more in Atlanta. The same trend applies to the price of new and used cars, with the latter falling 11% over the past year.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Consumer prices in the Philadelphia area climbed 3.4% in the year ending in August, according to BLS data. The city’s inflation rate is almost a percentage point higher than the national average.
In Philadelphia, prices for many food and beverage items are rising faster than the national average. Over the past year, prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs have increased at a rate more than twice the national average. Grain and bakery products jumped 2.5% over the past year in Philadelphia, even though prices for these products fell 1% nationally.
Prices of soft drinks in Philadelphia have risen more than six times faster than the national average over the past year.
Erasmus Kersting, an economics professor at Villanova University, said the sharp increase in prices for some food items could be due to a lack of competition among Philadelphia grocery stores. In the absence of fierce competition, grocery stores retain the latitude to raise prices without fear that a rival will offer a better deal on comparable products, Kersting said.
Two supermarket chains, Giant and ShopRite, accounted for 56% of the local grocery market in 2022, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal.
“Grocery prices have gone up a lot,” Kersting told ABC News. “This is partly due to the structure of the market. How many competitors do grocery stores have? »
