July 14th 2021 - Comparing Inflations

The Fed has been printing money to deal with the current crisis, leading to rising inflation. Let's disaggregate national inflation to compare what different Americans might be experiencing:

San Francisco:

Inflation in SF was already slowing in 2019 before Covid, but March 2020 appears to have shaken things up, and while the re-opening in 2021 has spiked inflation, it is still well below April 2018 (4%). A significant part of inflation in the area is high gas prices.

It appears that inflation in the area is even below pre-Covid levels, i.e., it doesn't appear that SF is experiencing a Fed-flation despite the high stocks prices that have significantly boosted tech stock prices and created a wealth effect among tech employees.  

Seattle: 

The Seattle story is the antithesis of SF's, i.e., the area was also experiencing a slowdown in inflation, but reopening has created a huge increase. 

Dallas & DC have a similar story:  

In mature cities like New York & Chicago inflation was fairly consistent but has taken a huge spike: 

Summary: 

There are different levels of inflation in different cities in the US, e.g., Chicago, DC, etc. have seen the biggest bump from their rolling averages and will feel shaken. While at the same time, San Francisco's emptying impact and the embrace of remote work by tech companies may make SF a unique city where Fed inflation won't return things to 2018 levels. Residents of different US cities will thus have very different relative experiences of Fed-flation with SF residents likely to consider it a good thing and residents of places like Chicago treating as "too much" and "irresponsible"