By Adam McCann, WalletHub Financial Writer
Americans are still dealing with relatively high inflation, which hit a 40-year high last year. Though inflation has started to slow due to factors like the Federal Reserve rate hikes, the year-over-year inflation rate was still 3% in June. This relatively high inflation is driven by a variety of factors, such as the war in Ukraine and labor shortages. The government is hoping its series of interest rate hikes will rein in inflation, but exactly how much of an effect that will have remains to be seen.
Inflation rates differ across the U.S, though. In order to determine the cities where inflation is rising the most – and thus is the biggest problem – WalletHub compared 23 major MSAs (Metropolitan Statistical Areas) across two key metrics related to the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation. We compared the Consumer Price Index for the latest month for which BLS data is available to two months prior and one year prior to get a snapshot of how inflation has changed in the short and long term.
| Overall Rank | MSA | Total Score | Consumer Price Index Change (Latest month vs 2 months before) |
Consumer Price Index Change (Latest month vs 1 year ago) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL | 100.00 | 1.70% | 7.30% |
| 2 | Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 72.56 | 1.20% | 4.60% |
| 3 | Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI | 70.09 | 1.10% | 4.70% |
| 4 | St. Louis, MO-IL | 68.42 | 1.30% | 3.10% |
| 5 | Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 66.68 | 1.00% | 4.60% |
| 6 | San Diego-Carlsbad, CA | 66.57 | 0.90% | 5.20% |
| 7 | Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO | 63.15 | 0.80% | 5.10% |
| 8 | Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 62.82 | 0.50% | 6.90% |
| 9 | Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 61.27 | 0.80% | 4.70% |
| 10 | Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA | 57.49 | 0.80% | 3.90% |
| 11 | Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 56.66 | 0.90% | 3.10% |
| 12 | Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | 50.78 | 0.70% | 3.10% |
| 13 | New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA | 47.95 | 0.70% | 2.50% |
| 14 | Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 45.01 | 0.60% | 2.50% |
| 15 | San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA | 43.95 | 0.50% | 2.90% |
| 16 | Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ | 42.20 | 0.20% | 4.40% |
| 17 | Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX | 38.29 | 0.50% | 1.70% |
| 18 | Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI | 37.24 | 0.40% | 2.10% |
| 19 | Minneapolis-St.Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI | 35.82 | 0.40% | 1.80% |
| 20 | Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD | 34.66 | 0.20% | 2.80% |
| 21 | Urban Honolulu, HI | 33.82 | 0.30% | 2.00% |
| 22 | Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 32.55 | 0.00% | 3.60% |
| 23 | Anchorage, AK | 11.77 | 0.40% | -3.30% |
Methodology
In order to determine the cities where inflation is rising the most, WalletHub compared 23 MSAs (Metropolitan Statistical Areas) across two key metrics involving the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation. The metrics are listed below, along with their corresponding weights. We then determined each MSA’s weighted average across the metrics and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample.
