DENVER (KDVR) — Denver stands in the middle among U.S. cities for its inflation rate, but that has bounced around over the last three years.
Among U.S. cities, inflation has risen about 15% since the beginning of 2020. Some cities have had a worse run of rising prices than others, potentially pointing to local housing economics or energy production.
The Denver metro managed to end 2022 with a middling inflation rate among U.S. cities, though it had relatively high inflation leading into the pandemic.
From November 2019 to 2022, the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood metro statistical area’s consumer price index rose 16.5% – exactly in the middle of the range of 23 such urban areas.
The area’s inflation rate is sandwiched between that of the Philadelphia and Detroit metros.
Inflation has hit destination cities harder than others. The metro areas with the highest inflation rates have also seen some of the biggest influxes of residents in the last five years. The Phoenix metro, a popular moving destination, clocked the highest inflation gain with 23.1%. The Tampa and Atlanta areas also saw massive population swells and had the next highest.
Urban Alaska and Hawaii and the Houston and San Francisco metros had the lowest inflation rates.
Denver’s inflation has been lower than the national rate through much of the last 18 months and the preceding pandemic. Before the pandemic, though, it had a higher-than-average inflation rate.
Through the summers of 2019 and 2020, Denver’s inflation was among the nation’s metro’s highest, and the highest through the first half of 2020. Its inflation rate swung beneath other cities, however, and was the lowest among major metros for the next summer. It has spent the last 18 months at an average inflation rate.