Keystone Today

Inflation rates continue to burden families across the country, including in Pennsylvania. This includes the cost of raising a child, which studies have shown has become much more expensive than previous years.

“A married, middle-income couple with two children is likely to spend $310,605 — an average of $18,271 a year — to raise their youngest child born in 2015, per Brookings, which first shared the estimates to the Wall Street Journal,” tweeted Axios.

An Axios report on August 19 said this is a 9% increase from what was estimated based on inflation two years ago. It will cost $26,000 more to raise a child through high school now than it did two years ago. This was based on a Brookings Institute estimate.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for the past year ending July 2022, and data showed that there was an 8.5% all items annual increase. This was actually down 0.6% from from last month, but it does remain high. The largest contributors include increases in the index for food, shelter and electricity.

Information released by statistic.com shows that inflation has been on a steady incline over the past 18 months, and this has been especially apparent since January 2021 when President Joe Biden took office. It has risen almost every month during that time, except the last one.

The United States Congress Joint Economic Committee’s State Inflation Tracker for July 2022 showed that Pennsylvania has an 11.2% inflation rate. It found that the state’s additional monthly cost per household is $585 and the annual cost per household is $7,018.

Newsweek reported that back in June, Biden said that fighting the inflation issue was his highest priority, saying “too many families are struggling to keep up with their bills.” A White House statement criticized Congressional Republicans saying that they have called for a new minimum tax on the middle class that would mean an average of about $1,500 less for families each year.

One month later, the Commerce Department figures showed that the U.S. had entered an unofficial technical recession as their was negative economic growth for two straight quarters. Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel responded with blame on President Biden.

"This is Joe Biden's recession. Biden can lie and deflect blame all he wants, but that will not alleviate the pain Americans feel every time they fill up their gas tanks, go grocery shopping, check their retirement savings, or balance their budgets. Biden and Democrats are responsible for our shrinking economy, and they're only trying to make it worse," McDaniel said.