The chart below – inspired by the American Enterprise Institute’s “Chart of the Century”[i] – displays 22 years of cumulative changes in the price of consumer goods and services in Arizona. While on average, consumer prices have risen 83% since the turn of this century, the prices of four goods have more than doubled – gasoline (+284%), home prices (+213%), and rent (+138%). Strikingly, following the surge in inflation since 2020, no good or service tracked by CSI has recorded a decline in prices over the past 22 years.
For perspective, average hourly earnings in Arizona have increased by about 95% since 2000[ii].
Chart Sources
Below are the sources of the data used to construct the “Arizona Prices in the 21st Century” chart.
© 2023 Common Sense Institute
[i] Perry, Mark. “Chart of the Day… or Century?”. American Enterprise Institute. January 14, 2020.
[ii] CSI estimates using BLS hourly wage data since 2007, available here.