---
"title": "Fast Rising Prices"
"description": "Nearly eight-in-ten Americans feel that prices in the US have risen \"a lot\" in recent years."
"date": "2008-02-21"
"authors":
  -
    "name": "Russell Heimlich"
    "job_title": "Former web developer"
    "link": "https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/staff/russell-heimlich/"
"url": "https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/short-reads/2008/02/21/fast-rising-prices/"
---

# Fast Rising Prices

The general sense that prices have risen rapidly in recent years is much more prevalent now than at the beginning of the Bush administration; overall, 79% of the public says that over the past five years prices have risen “a lot;” in June 2001, 63% said that prices had increased a great deal over the previous five years.Rising prices — for gasoline or energy, healthcare, or overall inflation — are mentioned most frequently as the nation’s biggest economic problem. Overall, 24% cite concern over prices — with the cost of energy and healthcare mentioned most frequently — as the most important problem facing the country. By comparison, 18% volunteer jobs as the nation’s biggest economic problem, while 13% cite housing — including 6% who specifically cite the sub-prime mortgage crisis. [Read More](https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/pubs/734/economy)