"Ponder a California inflation index from my trusty spreadsheet, which averaged four decades' worth of annual changes in regional price indexes for Los Angeles-Orange County, San Diego and San Francisco. RELATED: Inflation rate in Bay Area rises at fastest pace in more than a year By this math, California consumer prices rose 3.1% last year. That's flat with 2024, equal to statewide inflation's 40-year average and nowhere near the 6.9% peak of 2022."
"The recent cost-of-living surge was especially painful because it was a sharp contrast to what had been "enjoyed" in the post-Great-Recession economy. Let's flashback over 40 years. California inflation averaged 3.3% from 1986 to 2008 - in the ballpark of today's cost of living hikes. These were volatile times. The era included three California-heavy price bubbles - real estate in the late 1980s and the early 2000s, and the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s."
California consumer prices rose 3.1% last year, matching the state's 40-year average and equaling 2024's rate. National inflation was 2.6%, below 2024's 2.9% and near the 2.8% 40-year average. Inflation peaked near 2022 levels—6.9% statewide and roughly 8% nationally—but has since moderated. Many households still feel strain because the sharp price surge contrasted with the prolonged low-inflation period after the Great Recession. California inflation averaged about 3.3% from 1986–2008 and experienced volatility from several regional price bubbles including late-1980s and early-2000s real estate and the late-1990s dot-com boom.
Read at The Mercury News
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