Pricing Pressure: Consumers are paying higher prices as inflation keeps creeping up

COVID-19: Restarting the world isn’t easy

HOUSTON – If you’ve been to the supermarket or the gas station lately, you may have noticed it costs more now to feed your family and fill up your car.

The pandemic is a big factor in those increases, which cover a wide range of products.

Freight is more expensive because diesel prices are up. Some raw materials are in short supply too, which adds further pricing pressure.

“The price, (which) I have never seen in 42 years, in my business life, go up this high,” Youval Meicler, founder of Texas Mattress Makers, said.

Meicler said raw materials to build beds have skyrocketed over the last year, including a 50% increase in foam, and a 32% in steel, both components are key elements to bed construction.

Meicler’s competitors face the same problem, so do other industries including the auto industry where a global semiconductor shortage has delayed production, decreasing supply.

Meicler said he has tried to minimize the increases to consumers, but businesses far and wide are having trouble holding the line while wholesale, material, and freight costs have climbed.

“This is not a cause for long-term concern at the moment, but you’re going to feel it in the things you buy on a regular basis: gasoline, food, clothing,” Peter Rodriguez, Dean of the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University, said.

Both Rodriguez and Meicler said COVID-19 is undoubtedly a factor.

Restarting production lines and securing raw materials takes a robust workforce and that end of the economy is just starting to come back online in many industries. So far, demand is outstripping supply, but Rodriguez expected it to level it out later this year.