The Price of This Household Item Is Plunging

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Apr 18, 12:00PM EDT

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The Price of This Household Item Is Plunging — © SDI Productions / E+ via Getty Images

The consumer price index rose 8.5% in March, compared to the same month last year. It was the largest jump in nearly four decades. Almost every category of consumer spending was affected. This has caused widespread worry that the cost of living in America may move so high so fast that it will cause a recession as early as this year. Prices on a few goods and services, though, have actually fallen over the past year – and the category whose price has plunged the most is food at elementary and secondary schools.

The only major weapon the U.S. government has to head off rising prices soon is the Federal Reserve. It has already said it will raise interest rates four times this year. Each increase is expected to be a quarter of a point. Some of the members of the Fed say this will not be enough and that, to correct the inflationary environment, increases will need to be half a percent. This is quite a contrast to the past several years, when the Fed did not raise rates at all.

As much as half of the CPI jump in March was attributed to oil prices. They have surged largely due to export sanctions against Russia, one of the world’s largest oil exporters. Should that country’s invasion of Ukraine continue, the Russian oil situation will persist.

To determine the household items that are plunging in price, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed data on the consumer price index for all urban consumers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Expenditure categories were ranked based on the percentage change in CPI from March 2021 to March 2022. (Data used to calculate percentage change are not seasonally adjusted.)

Items in the CPI with falling prices are few and far between. Most can be attributed to specific causes. For example, the price of smartphones fell over 13% in March. Competition for customers among the three largest wireless companies (AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile) almost certainly has caused this.

The cost of food at employee sites and schools fell more than any other CPI component – 30.5% in the former case, an astonishing 43.5% in the latter. This may be a reflection of the fact that many schools and businesses have not fully reopened after being shuttered because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Click here to see how the price of this household item is plunging

One thing is certain. The few items for which prices fell last month cannot come close to offsetting the price surge of dozens of other items that are parts of the CPI.

12. Tenants’ and household insurance
> Price decrease, Mar. 2021 to Mar. 2022: -0.4%

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11. Wireless telephone services
> Price decrease, Mar. 2021 to Mar. 2022: -0.8%

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10. Televisions
> Price decrease, Mar. 2021 to Mar. 2022: -1.5%

9. Ship fares
> Price decrease, Mar. 2021 to Mar. 2022: -1.6%

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8. Checking account and other bank services
> Price decrease, Mar. 2021 to Mar. 2022: -2.6%

7. Audio equipment
> Price decrease, Mar. 2021 to Mar. 2022: -3.0%

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6. Computer software and accessories
> Price decrease, Mar. 2021 to Mar. 2022: -4.7%

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5. Video discs and other media
> Price decrease, Mar. 2021 to Mar. 2022: -6.1%

4. Telephone hardware, calculators, and other consumer information items
> Price decrease, Mar. 2021 to Mar. 2022: -9.0%

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3. Smartphones
> Price decrease, Mar. 2021 to Mar. 2022: -13.5%

2. Food at employee sites and schools
> Price decrease, Mar. 2021 to Mar. 2022: -30.5%

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1. Food at elementary and secondary schools
> Price decrease, Mar. 2021 to Mar. 2022: -43.5%

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.