By Maria Cramer, Christine Hauser and Livia Albeck-Ripka
Source: The New York Times
Susan Pollack, a property manager who was shopping one afternoon last week at a Costco in Marina del Rey, Calif., said she was startled that the price of a bulk pack of toilet paper had surged from $17 to $25.
At her local kosher butcher shop, the prices were rising even higher: more than $200 for a 5-pack of short ribs.
“I told my husband, ‘We’re never having short ribs again,’” she said.
Global forces such as supply chain disruptions, severe weather, energy costs and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have contributed to rising inflation rates that have spooked stock market investors and put President Biden’s administration on the defensive.
But the pressure is felt most directly by shoppers doing their weekly runs to grocery stores, where some items that used to be plentiful have been missing for months and where prices for produce, meat and eggs remain stubbornly high.