The soaring costs of basic necessities such as food and housing are disproportionately hitting people with lower incomes. Here, a house is available for rent in Los Angeles on March 15.

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Four-dollar gasoline and five-dollar hamburger are putting a squeeze on Tanya Byron’s pocketbook. But it’s the rent that really stings.

“It’s pretty depressing,” says the Jacksonville, Fla., travel agent, sitting in the tiny dining room that doubles as her home office. “I make $42,000 a year, and I can barely afford a one-bedroom apartment.”

The rising costs of housing, food and other necessities are big drivers of inflation, and they fall especially hard on lower-income Americans, posing a growing challenge for President Biden and the nation’s top economic policymakers.

A report from the Labor Department Wednesday shows consumer prices in April were 8.3% higher than a year earlier. That’s a modest decrease from the March inflation rate of 8.5%, thanks in part to a short-lived drop in gasoline prices last month. Gas prices have since rebounded to a record high, though unadjusted for inflation.

ECONOMY

How soaring inflation forces stark choices

But food and shelter costs remained elevated, according to the latest inflation report. In Jacksonville, apartment rents have jumped 23% in the last year, according to Realtor.com.

“I feel like there should be some kind of cap on the percentage that a landlord can raise the rent if they haven’t done anything,” says Byron, whose own apartment dates from another period of soaring prices.

“It was built in 1976, and they have not updated anything,” she says. “The doors and baseboards are painted brown. It’s clean, but it’s very basic.”…..More Here