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 percent.
BLS officials said Wednesday the principal driver behind the increase was retail gasoline prices, which jumped 11.6 percent between the beginning of April and the end of May. That in turn pushed the energy component of the CPI up 8.6 percent 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 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively.
Conversely, shelter costs — or property rents — trended marginally downward throughout the region in April and May, slipping 0.1 percent, and costs in the household furnishings category fell by 2.3 percent, according to the BLS.
Nationwide, the overall CPI registered a .5 percent 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 percent.
In the Inland Empire, the year-over-year CPI was 3.4 percent, 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 percent and 5 percent, 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.
