Have you noticed that your grocery bill seems to be going up or that filling your gas tank costs more?
It's true. Prices are rising – a sign that the economy is coming out of recession – and the price hikes aren't likely to slow down anytime soon.
After a year of being locked down, people are starting to travel again.
"We're tripping out on how much money we're putting in our gas tank," Nick Razo of San Jose said.
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It does cost more to fill up – an average of 6.5% more in February after a 7.5% jump in January.
People are also paying a bit more when they buy groceries.
With optimism, vaccines and stimulus checks on the way, it appears the economy is again on the rise and prices are rising along with it.
"The kind of higher prices that we've got now are normal higher prices that happen when you come out of a recession," San Jose State University business professor Robert Chapman Wood said. "Food prices are likely to have a little bit of a spike. Gas prices are going to go back to something more or less like what they were before the pandemic."
Looking ahead to the post-pandemic picture, economists say things could get even more expensive because of stimulus money in people's pockets and pent up demand for things like travel and housing that had slowed in the last year.
