Grand Canyon Times

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released new data on March 12, indicating an increase in inflation for February. Recent polling suggests that the economy and inflationary pressures are high-priority concerns for Arizona voters, who have expressed significant disapproval of President Biden's economic management.

According to the BLS' latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, the overall CPI rose 3.2% from February 2023 to February 2024. The BLS points out that this represents a larger annual CPI increase than the 3.1% rise observed from January 2023 to January 2024. The overall CPI also increased by 0.4% in February 2024 over January 2024, compared to a rise of 0.3% from December 2023 to January 2024.

The BLS also indicates that increases in the shelter and gasoline index "contributed over sixty percent of the monthly increase in the index for all items."

In the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale metropolitan area, as reported by the BLS, the overall CPI increased by 2.2 % from February 2023 to February 2024. During this period, the shelter index rose by 2.7%. In the two-month period ending in February 2024, the CPI increased by 0.7%, while there was a surge of 4.7% in the gasoline index between January and February of that year.

A poll conducted by League of American Workers (LAW) in November 2023 revealed that a plurality —42%—of likely Arizona voters identified "economic issues like jobs and inflation" as one of their top two priorities influencing their voting decisions in the upcoming general election. Furthermore, Arizona voters expressed disapproval of President Joe Biden's economic leadership by a margin of 60 to 38% and believed by a margin of 78 to 18% that the American Dream is out of reach for most Arizonans.

The poll was conducted by North Star Opinion Research and commissioned by LAW, an organization working to examine economic public policies affecting American workers, according to the LAW website.