The annual inflation rate in the Phoenix metropolitan area slowed to 2.8% in June, remaining below the national rate as falling energy prices and comparatively modest shelter-cost growth eased pressure on the region’s Consumer Price Index (CPI).
The Phoenix-area CPI increased 2.8% during the 12 months ending in June, down from 3% in April, according to a new Common Sense Institute (CSI) analysis of federal inflation data. National consumer prices increased 3.5% over the same annual period.
CSI attributed much of the local decline to energy prices, which fell 6.4% during June after increasing 26.5% between February and May. The earlier increase helped drive Phoenix’s annual inflation rate from 1.7% in February to 3% in April, according to CSI.
Inflation has slowed but prices are still much higher than they were five years ago.
Since June 2019, prices in the Phoenix metro have increased 33.4%, adding an estimated $1,673 per month to the budget of a typical Arizona household.
— Common Sense Institute Arizona (@CSInstituteAZ) July 15, 2026
Energy remained more expensive than it was one year earlier. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that Phoenix-area energy prices were up 14.1% year-over-year in June, while gasoline prices were 26.2% higher. The local energy index declined 4.4% over the two-month period ending in June, including a 10.7% decrease in gasoline prices.
Nationally, the CPI declined 0.4% from May to June on a seasonally adjusted basis, marking the largest monthly decrease since April 2020, according to the BLS national inflation report. The national energy index fell 5.7% during June, including a 9.7% decline in gasoline prices. National consumer prices remained 3.5% higher than one year earlier, while energy prices were up 15.7%.
Shelter costs also helped keep Phoenix inflation below the national rate. Shelter prices increased 1.4% year-over-year in the Phoenix area, compared with 3.3% nationally. CSI said home prices have cooled in Arizona during the past two years while national home prices continued to increase, reducing shelter’s contribution to Phoenix-area inflation.
CSI said the gap between Phoenix and national shelter inflation has narrowed during the past six months as housing markets elsewhere began to cool. When shelter costs are excluded, CPI growth in Phoenix and across the country is nearly identical, according to CSI.
Phoenix-area food prices increased 2.2% year-over-year in June. The local index excluding food and energy rose 2%, while the comparable national index increased 2.6%. CSI separately calculated that the Phoenix index for all items excluding energy increased 2% from the previous year, up from 1.7% in April.
Among the 23 metropolitan areas compared by CSI using the latest available BLS data, Phoenix recorded the fifth-slowest year-over-year inflation rate. The region had posted the fourth-slowest rate among the 14 metropolitan areas reporting April figures.
The recent slowdown follows several years of substantial price increases. CSI calculated that Phoenix-area prices have risen 33.4% since June 2019, compared with a 30.3% national increase. According to the institute, the increase is “adding approximately $1,673 in monthly expenses to the average Arizona household.”
From June 2024 through June 2026, cumulative Phoenix-area inflation was 3%, below the approximately 4% increase that would result from prices growing steadily at an annual rate of 2%, according to CSI.
CSI cautioned that changes in individual categories can have an outsized effect on the headline CPI because the index is a weighted average of price movements across goods and services. CSI identified volatile energy prices as a significant driver of both the local and national figures and estimated that alternative measures place the Phoenix area’s underlying inflation rate closer to 2% than the 2.8% headline figure.
Consumer prices declined on a month-to-month basis in June while annual inflation continued to moderate, according to the Joint Economic Committee’s latest Monthly Inflation Update.
The report found that the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), the government’s primary measure of inflation, fell 0.42% from May to June. On an annual basis, consumer prices were 3.53% higher than in June 2025, down from the 4.25% year-over-year inflation rate recorded in May.
Core inflation, which excludes the more volatile food and energy categories, also eased. Core CPI declined 0.02% during June and increased 2.59% over the past 12 months, marking a slowdown from the previous month’s annual rate of 2.85%.
Energy prices were a major factor in the monthly decline. The energy index fell 5.71% in June after increasing 3.88% in May. Despite the monthly decrease, energy prices remained 15.70% higher than a year ago.
Food prices continued to rise modestly, increasing 0.21% during the month and 3.01% over the past year.
Inflation continued to vary across the country. The Northeast recorded the highest annual headline inflation rate at 4.3%, followed by the Midwest at 3.8%. The South and West each posted annual inflation rates of 3.2%
The June report also showed that workers experienced modest gains in purchasing power as inflation-adjusted wages increased. Real average weekly earnings for all private-sector employees rose 0.77% from May, while real average hourly earnings increased 0.80%.
For production and nonsupervisory employees, real average weekly earnings increased 0.55% and real average hourly earnings rose 0.81%.
The Joint Economic Committee noted that “real” earnings reflect wages after adjusting for inflation making them a better indicator of workers’ purchasing power. Weekly earnings are considered a more comprehensive measure of income because they account for changes in both hourly pay and hours worked.
The report also showed inflation came in below expectations. According to forecasts from the Cleveland Federal Reserve, economists had projected monthly headline inflation of a 0.06% decline and annual inflation of 3.92%. Instead, headline CPI fell 0.42% in June and the annual rate registered 3.53%, indicating inflation cooled more than anticipated.
Compared with June 2025, annual inflation remained elevated but continued its gradual moderation. Headline inflation stood at 3.53%, food inflation at 3.01%, core inflation at 2.59%, and energy prices remained the fastest-growing component, rising 15.70% over the past year despite their sharp monthly decline.
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Inflation rose slightly in February, with the Consumer Price Index reaching 2.41 percent year over year, according to the latest monthly inflation update released Wednesday by the Joint Economic Committee.
The committee’s report found that CPI-U inflation increased from 2.39 percent in January to 2.41 percent in February. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, declined slightly from 2.50 percent in January to 2.46 percent in February. The Federal Reserve targets inflation of roughly 2 percent over the long term, making CPI readings near that level a key benchmark for policymakers.
Economists often monitor both measures when assessing inflation trends. Headline CPI reflects the full range of consumer price changes, including food and fuel, while core CPI removes those categories because they can fluctuate sharply from month to month due to factors such as commodity markets and weather-related supply disruptions.
The update noted that the figures do not include potential increases in energy prices that could result from ongoing military activity in the Middle East.
Food prices continued to rise faster than overall inflation. Year-over-year food price inflation reached 3.06 percent, an increase of 0.45 percentage points compared with the previous month.
Energy prices also increased, with year-over-year energy inflation reaching 0.48 percent, up 0.65 percentage points from the prior reading. Energy prices can shift quickly due to changes in global supply, geopolitical developments, and seasonal demand.
Regionally, inflation rates varied across the country but declined from January to February in each region measured by the report. Inflation was highest in the Midwest at 2.8 percent, followed by the Northeast and West at 2.7 percent each, while the South recorded the lowest rate at 1.8 percent.
Regional CPI comparisons reflect differences in housing costs, transportation expenses, energy prices, and local economic conditions that influence consumer spending patterns across the country.
The report also found that wages increased when adjusted for inflation.
Real weekly earnings for all employees rose 1.67 percent year over year, representing a 0.98 percentage point increase from the previous reading. Real hourly earnings increased 1.42 percent year over year, a 0.16 percentage point increase.
The Consumer Price Index, compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, tracks price changes across a basket of goods and services commonly purchased by households, including housing, food, transportation, medical care, and other everyday expenses.
The index is widely used by policymakers, businesses, and economists to measure inflation trends, evaluate purchasing power, and guide economic policy decisions.
Arizona residents experience many of the same price trends reflected in national CPI data, including changes in food, energy, and consumer goods prices that affect household budgets across the state.
The full February inflation report is available from the Joint Economic Committee here.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright says high electricity costs are a political choice in the United States today. The evidence at hand indicates the Secretary isn’t wrong.
“If you have expensive energy in your state…it’s because politicians and regulators chose to do that,” Wright said in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal. “It is not bad luck, it is not marketplace…there is no reason to have these rapid increases in electricity prices – no reason, but politics.”
This is correct, and the disparity that exists in electricity bills in red states and blue states can be easily seen in a national map published by the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), along with its supporting data.
EIA’s data shows the states with the highest rates include Democratic strongholds like California, New York, Hawaii, and the New England states. Meanwhile, the states with the lowest utility bills include the reddest of red states like Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, North Dakota, and Iowa. This all ties directly in with the findings in a recent study by the Institute for Energy Research that I wrote about in January.
There is no real mystery here: Democrats seek to exploit the “affordability” issue in the upcoming midterm elections, but the truth is their policies created that issue to begin with. In his interview, Wright provides the proof points:
Electricity prices were up 6.7% year over year in December, nearly 40% since 2020. That is due to the United States adopting “UK-style” energy policies under the Biden and Obama presidencies, like forcing coal plant closures and wind/solar mandates.
Utility rates rose two times the rate of inflation in Democrat-governed states over the last five years, in GOP states, only half the inflation rate.
States with Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) have 50% higher prices than those without; 28 states enforce them, driving costs up.
Biden’s $5 trillion stimulus (for a $1.5T GDP gap) fueled inflation across the board but is now fixable via policy reversals like the ones Wright and other Trump officials are now pursuing.
“We’ve had a tailwind of these things to drive up our own energy prices,” Wright says, “And so that’s a battleship we’re stopping and turning back.”
Turning a policy battleship in the middle of an ocean takes time, but Wright’s efforts produced results during the recent major winter storm. In several regions, coal-fired power plants for which Wright acted to delay scheduled premature retirements generated needed baseload power to avoid blackout conditions as wind and solar failed to perform. Keeping many of those coal plants – and natural gas plants also scheduled for premature retirements under absurd RPS mandates – running will be crucial to maintaining integrity and reliability on grids from coast to coast in the years to come.
The good news for Americans is that this country enjoys an incredible abundance of all the natural resources and raw materials needed to restore sanity and reliability to our power grid. All that’s really needed is the political will to get it done while keeping electricity bills affordable.
Wright and the red states on EIA’s map have shown us the way. That’s true even in Texas, one of the few red states that maintains an RPS of its own. There, policymakers fell asleep at the wheel about the need to maintain a needed fleet of dispatchable reserve capacity, a mistake for which Texans dearly paid during 2021’s Winter Storm Uri.
But, in contrast to their peers in many blue states, Texas policymakers showed a capacity to learn from their mistakes, enacting a series of effective reforms over the last five years that vastly improved grid reliability.
In the recent Winter Storm Fern, the ERCOT-managed Texas grid, which proved to be the national poster child for grid failure in 2021, came through as a shining object lesson on how to fix past mistakes while remaining one of the 10 states with the lowest utility rates.
If you live in a state where power bills are too high, that is a choice your political leaders have made for you to endure. You should factor that reality into your thinking next time those politicians are up for re-election.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
Things are just not going well for the leftwing activist groups, billionaire-funded NGOs and trial lawyer firms who have recruited a growing number of state and local government entities to sue U.S. oil and gas companies involving specious claims for damages caused by climate change. In recent months, the lawfare campaign, coordinated mainly from the offices of one San Francisco-based firm, has suffered a series of adverse judicial decisions in what appears to be a rising consensus in the nation’s courts.
Just two weeks after suffering a major setback in a decision involving Anne Arundel County, Maryland, the pushers and funders of this lawfare campaign were tossed out in a case targeting ExxonMobil, Chevron and additional defendants in New Jersey. There, Superior Court Judge Douglas H. Hurd dismissed the Garden State’s lawsuit with prejudice based on the same federal primacy arguments which prevailed in recent decisions in New York City and Baltimore, as well as in the Anne Arundel case.
In seeking damages, New Jersey adopted similar tactics adopted in the other cases that make up this lawfare campaign, claiming they’ve been harmed by “climate change” impacts allegedly caused by the emissions by oil companies, but attempting to couch the damages as violations of state laws unrelated to air pollution. But Hurd was having none of it.
“Despite the artful pleading by the Plaintiffs in this case,” the judge says in his decision, “this court finds that Plaintiffs’ complaint, even under the most indulgent reading, is entirely about addressing the injuries of global climate change and seeking damages for such alleged injuries.”
The problem for the states, cities and counties who have signed up for this lawfare campaign in the hopes of grabbing some big bucks from Big Oil is that their arguments inevitably amount to a local effort to de facto regulate air quality, an area of regulation in which the federal government has always asserted its primacy. There’s a very good reason for this: If every city, county and state in America were allowed to regulate air quality, the economy would soon grind to a halt as it becomes impossible to do business in this country.
Like the judges in the other cases decided thus far, Hurd conceded to that reality in dismissing the New Jersey case, saying, “As Defendants state in their moving brief, ‘the federal system does not permit a State to apply its laws to claims seeking redress for injuries allegedly caused by interstate or worldwide emissions,’” adding, “In conclusion, only federal law can govern Plaintiffs’ interstate and international emissions claims because ‘the basic scheme of the Constitution so demands.’”
The decision in the New Jersey case no doubt comes as a real disappointment for the billionaire-funded foundations and NGOs who spent years pushing for the state attorney general’s office to bring a case. In 2023, Energy Policy Advocates obtained emails detailing tactics employed by the Rockefeller-funded Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) to convince various cities and counties in the state to sign onto the lawfare campaign.
Those emails revealed close coordination between CCI and New Jersey officials, even to the extent of CCI funding an “Accountability University” to educate lawfare participants about the best tactics and talking points to deploy in their big money grab efforts.
CCI even offered to “ghost write” opinion pieces for public officials and “serve as an extra set of hands,” adding, “…there are absolutely no legal obligations. Since we are a 501 c3, there is no pledge or legal sign on’ required. Rather, we view ourselves as an extra set of hands to help public officials…”
So, what’s the point of all this, you might ask? Well, the point is that when you see one of these lawsuits brought by a city, county or state government, just know that none of this is happening organically. Also know that this big money grab costs these companies millions to defend themselves, and we all end up paying for it at the gas pump and in our home utility bills. Maybe it’s time we all demand these billionaires and trial lawyers find more productive ways to spend their time and money.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
