ATLANTA — Inflation numbers for August in the U.S. showed prices increasing again, but even though everyone is still paying more than a year ago, the overall trend, so far, is down.
Meche Williams said Tuesday as she loaded groceries into her car outside a supermarket, "I'm seeing the prices improve somewhat."
She added that, yes, she's still paying more now than she was paying a year ago, but in the past few months, "When I filled up my grocery cart before, I was totaling around $300. And now I’m totaling about $260. So, it's a little improvement--very miniscule, but we're getting somewhere."
Atlanta economist Raymond Hill, who recently retired as a professor with the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, said that what Williams is seeing is in line with all the statistics he’s seeing.
"Right now, everything looks like it's on a continued, downward path," Hill said. “Atlanta's inflation has been more severe than the rest of the country by a pretty good margin, but it is also slowing down.”
Hill pointed to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that inflation in Atlanta was at its worst in July and August, 2022, and it’s been decreasing steadily to below five percent.
"Everything is higher than it was two years ago or one year ago,” Hill said. “All we're saying now is the rate at which it's increasing is beginning to slow down."
Georgia's Governor Brian Kemp believes that the cumulative effect on everyone of all those higher prices over the past two years has caused a state of emergency now, which is one reason he decided to suspend the state’s motor fuel tax beginning Wednesday--a way to help consumers.
Hill said gas prices have been increasing in Georgia and everywhere else not necessarily because of inflation, but because OPEC and the U.S. are letting oil supplies decrease, for now.
So Hill said that, yes, the governor’s decision to suspend Georgia's 31-cent-a-gallon gas tax for a month will give everyone's wallet a break, temporarily, but even without that break, Hill believes the worst of inflation is behind us.
"Wages have also increased,” Hill said. “It's only recently that wages have kept up with inflation. So on a net basis, the average American is a little bit worse off than they were two years ago. The next six months we'll probably not get back to 2% inflation, but we'll continue to be somewhere in the 3% range."