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San Antonio had one of highest cost of living increases in US, report says

Inflation expected to have long-lasting effect on prices

Downtown San Antonio skyline photo shows the San Antonio Central Library on Soledad Street from the Thompson San Antonio River Walk hotel in July 2021. (Julie Moreno, KSAT)

SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio and New Braunfels area has just made the list of top metro areas with the biggest increase in the cost of living.

A new study puts San Antonio/New Braunfels at No. 14 in the U.S. for the highest cost of living increases in large metros.

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Other Texas cities like Austin and Dallas came in at No. 12 and No. 8, respectively, based on the data.

San Antonio was found to have a 17.4% increase in the cost of living from 2010 to 2020.

The study was commissioned by Filter Buy, a supplier for air filters and used data from the most recent U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities Dataset to determine which areas had the largest cost of living increases in the past decade.

The most recent housing market analysis for San Antonio shows home prices are up nearly 20% from one year ago and in October, the median price of a home exceeded $300,000 for the first time ever.

Over the past year, economists have expressed concern over the inflationary period in the U.S. brought on by ongoing supply issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Earlier in 2021, some economic experts - including the U.S. Federal Reserve - called this period of inflation a transitory one that would be corrected as supply chain issues worked themselves out,” according to Filter Buy. “The consensus now is that this period of inflation is likely to have a long-lasting effect on prices that will raise Americans’ cost of living.”

A report from the Washington Post states that federal officials “acknowledged that their initial expectations for inflation have missed the mark, compared with earlier predictions.”

The Federal Reserve has a goal of keeping inflation at about 2%, but “consumer prices surged at the fastest pace in more than three decades in October,” according to the New York Times.

For midsize metro areas with the largest increase in living costs, Brownsville and Corpus Christi both made the top-15 list.

Midland and Odessa made it in the top 10 for small metros with the largest increase in living costs.


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