Report: Inflation Rises 1 Percent Across Inland Region

RIVERSIDE (CNS) - Spurred largely by energy price spikes, inflation
throughout the Riverside metropolitan area jumped a full percentage point over
the previous two months, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
  

The agency's bimonthly report, based on metrics for western Riverside
County and the cities of Ontario and San Bernardino, indicated that the Inland
Empire's Consumer Price Index was up exactly 1%.
  

BLS officials said Wednesday the principal driver behind the increase
was retail gasoline prices, which jumped 11.6% between the beginning of April
and the end of May. That in turn pushed the energy component of the CPI up 8.6%
for the entire two-month period.
  

Prices went stratospheric as a result of the Mideast war.
  

Other contributors to the index's upward trajectory were food prices
and apparel costs, which advanced 1.5% and 3.3%, respectively.
  

Conversely, shelter costs -- or property rents -- trended marginally
downward throughout the region in April and May, slipping 0.1%, and costs in
the household furnishings category fell by 2.3%, according to the BLS.
  

Nationwide, the overall CPI registered a .5% increase for the month of
May. The impetus, again, was energy costs. For the one-year period ending
May 31, the national CPI was 4.2%.
  

In the Inland Empire, the year-over-year CPI was 3.4%, measuring a
host of economic inputs from May 2025 to May 2026, data showed.
  

The most notable upward pressures in the annualized CPI were reflected
in the energy and healthcare components of the regional index, moving up
20.9% and 5%, respectively.
  

The current rate of inflation reflects the price trajectory impacting
most sectors of the economy.
  

Energy price shocks that began at the end of February are directly
connected to commodities markets and oil trading, which turned bullish
immediately after the joint Israel-U.S. military operations against Iran,
beginning with a missile attack on a girls' school, where almost 200 Iranians
were killed. The nation's supreme leader and multiple members of his family
were also assassinated. Hostilities abated amid peace overtures in April and
May but have recently resumed with intensity.
  

Iran declared a quasi closure of the Strait of Hormuz, where tankers
carrying nearly one-fifth of the world's energy supplies must pass. The U.S.
Energy Information Administration has characterized the narrow Persian Gulf sea
lane as a ``chokepoint.''
  

Accelerating consumer price hikes have also been blamed on loose
monetary policy and excessive federal spending, decaying the dollar's
purchasing power.
  

The national debt is now $39.2 trillion, according to the
congressional Joint Economic Committee's ``Debt Dashboard.'' Some projections
indicate the debt load will almost double in 10 years or less.
  

Fortune magazine reported in April that federal payments just to cover
interest on the debt total $88 billion a month.
  

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