The Consumer Price Index (CPI) released Wednesday reflected what many already know – energy and food prices are the pain points for American shoppers.
The seasonally adjusted CPI-U, which covers all urban consumers, was up 0.1 percent over the month of June for all items. The unadjusted CPI-U is up 3.4 percent year-over-year, driven by increases in food and energy.
Nationally, unadjusted energy is up 14.7 percent, and food is up 3.0 percent.
Remove food and energy, and the unadjusted CPI-U for remaining items is 2.5 percent.
Virginia falls into two regional categories: the South, which covers Virginia, the District of Columbia, and 15 additional states, and the Mid-Atlantic, which covers the Washington, Arlington, Alexandria Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).
In the South, CPI-U for all items is up 3.2 percent year-over-year. The energy index is up 14.6 percent year-over-year.
In the Mid-Atlantic, the CPI-U rises are more pronounced.
Professor Robert M. McNab, chair of the economics department at Old Dominion University, told the Virginia Free Press via email that “for the DC MSA, headline CPI was 4.0 [percent] in July, and core CPI was up 2 [percent]. The energy CPI was up 22.9% in July y-o-y and food was up 5.0% y-o-y (note that gasoline was up > 20% y-o-y).”
To better contextualize the impact of energy prices, McNab wrote: “Another way to think about electricity prices, on average, is that from January 2019 to July 2025, electricity prices nationally, on average, are up 43.5%, over the same period headline CPI is up 31.8%.”
