January Inflation – Regional variation in Household Energy price.

Posted - Filed under Consumer Price Index, Release Observations.

Regional Household Energy Variations Chart

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The effect of the severe winter weather on January’s CPI increase was claimed for the sharp increase in household energy costs. When looking at the regional variations in the CPI indexes, there does seem to be a correlation with the distribution of cold weather, with sharp increases suffered mostly in the Northeast, with the West as a whole, seeing muted rises or even falls.

The chart on the right captures two extrems of this. New York metro area year/year household energy prices up 9%.  Los Angeles metro’s down by 1%.

See the table below for all regional numbers. NOTE: Because only not seasonally adjusted numbers are available from the BLS, we can only show the year-over-year changes.  Thus, moves in January 2014 cannot be disentangled from moves in January 2013.  Thus

 

Our other two charts compare Household Energy CPI with Gasoline CPI in the two metro regions.

 

la_energy

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ny_energy

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Regional Inflation. Household energy
All Urban Consumers (CPI-U). Not Seasonally Adjusted.
Regions, Sizes & Metros Year/Year Inflation Rate (%)
Dec.
2012		 Jan.
2013		 Oct.
2013		 Nov.
2013		 Dec.
2013		 Jan.
2014
U.S. city average -1.1 -0.4 3.0 2.2 2.4 4.8
– Size Class A (more than 1,500,000) -1.4 0.3 2.3 1.2 2.1 4.8
– Size Class B/C (between 50,000 and 1,500,000) -0.7 -1.0 3.8 3.2 2.6 4.8
– Size Class D (under 50,000) -1.4 -1.6 3.0 3.9 3.6 4.6
Northeast urban -1.6 1.2 1.0 -0.3 1.2 5.8
– Northeast urban – Size Class A -0.8 1.9 0.0 -1.4 0.8 6.8
– Northeast urban – Size Class B/C -3.7 -0.8 3.7 2.7 2.1 3.3
– New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-CT-PA 0.7 5.5 -0.0 -2.8 0.5 9.0
– Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City, PA-NJ-DE-MD -2.3 -3.8 -1.9 -1.9 -1.6 2.0
– Boston-Brockton-Nashua, MA-NH-ME-CT -2.5 -2.4 4.1 5.3 6.3 7.9
Midwest urban -1.2 -0.7 1.4 0.5 1.2 3.1
– Midwest – Size Class A -1.4 -0.1 0.6 -0.8 0.2 1.6
– Midwest – Size Class B/C -0.6 -1.9 2.3 2.1 2.4 5.5
– Chicago-Gary-Kenosha, IL-IN-WI -0.1 0.4 -4.6 -6.8 -5.4 0.7
– Detroit-Ann Arbor-Flint, MI -0.1 -4.5 -2.1 -2.0 -1.4 -2.7
– Cleveland-Akron, OH -2.2 -1.4 3.5 0.8 -1.2 0.8
– Midwest – Size Class D -2.4 -0.3 2.2 2.5 2.5 3.1
South urban -2.0 -2.8 4.4 3.3 2.3 5.1
– South – Size Class A -4.4 -4.8 4.9 3.4 2.8 5.8
– South – Size Class B/C -0.7 -1.7 4.2 3.2 1.8 4.5
– South – Size Class D -1.2 -2.3 3.7 3.7 2.9 5.3
– Washington-Baltimore, DC-MD-VA-WV -3.7 -4.2 7.3 6.8 6.5 7.0
– Dallas-Fort Worth, TX 2.0 2.6 10.7 6.0 1.4 2.7
– Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, TX – – – – – –
– Atlanta, GA -1.7 0.4 3.0 2.2 2.1 2.1
– Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL -1.3 -0.3 0.7 0.7 0.4 5.2
West urban 1.5 2.6 4.5 5.2 5.6 5.0
– West – Size Class A 1.3 3.9 4.7 5.0 5.5 4.2
– West – Size Class B/C 2.4 1.6 4.7 5.1 5.5 6.1
– Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County, CA 4.0 10.2 4.4 4.2 4.8 -1.1
– San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA 1.3 -0.3 4.3 4.4 5.0 7.5
– Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton, WA 0.3 1.8 1.6 2.9 3.1 3.4