Jackson, Hattiesburg and Mississippi, in general, have landed on a list that very few communities want to land on.
Inflation has put both Jackson and Hattiesburg on the list of cities where the cost of living has risen the most in the last year in a survey completed by SmartAsset, which compared economic data from the first quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2022 for 237 areas.
Jackson is No. 10 on the list and Hattiesburg No. 13.
The study used Cost of Living Index data from the Council for Community and Economic Research for Q1 2023 and Q1 2022.
Inflation has pushed the cost of living in the U.S. higher over the last two years. But as inflation has abated in many places and Americans continue to migrate to different parts of the country, the relative expense of different areas may still change with demand.
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The cost of living in Jackson rose 4.7% in 2023 relative to the national average, 10th biggest jump across the study. Having said that, Jackson is still among the most affordable places in the country. In Jackson, $85.02 goes just as far as $100 nationally, making this city the 17th most affordable of 237 areas.
The Hattiesburg area ranked 13th nationally as the cost of living rose 4.4% over the same amount of time.
Inflation is putting its mark on Mississippians and American in many ways as the national average for gas prices stood at about $3.78 a gallon on Tuesday — about 25 cents higher than that seen one month ago, according to motor club AAA. While today’s prices at the pump remain far lower than they were last year, when energy costs soared worldwide in the months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, experts say such a jump is unusual.
Mississippi’s gas prices are a little less than the nation average at $3.30, with Jackson and Hattiesburg each with prices of $3.29.
Nationally, Inflation picked up in July, breaking a 12-month streak of slowing consumer price increases and underscoring that the rest of the battle to tame a historic spike in consumer costs could be more challenging.
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Last month, another decline in used car prices costs offset a further surge in rent.
Consumer prices overall increased 3.2% from a year earlier, up from 3% in June, according to the Labor Department’s consumer price index, a measure of goods and services prices across the economy. That rise in inflation was largely due to a technicality in the calculation of yearly price gains.
Plano, Texas topped the list with a cost increase of 9.5%, followed by Kalamazoo, Michigan, (8.8%); Hampton Roads, Virginia, (8.6%); Tulsa, Oklahoma, (6.1%); and Terre Haute, Indiana, (6.0%) which rounded out the top 5.
