Pet owners are reportedly struggling to care for their animals under the weight of inflation and economic problems in President Joe Biden’s (D) America.
According to a CNN Business article published Sunday:
Overall inflation remains high across the United States, but has slowly and methodically stepped down since setting a fresh 40-year record of 9.1% in June 2022, as measured by the Consumer Price Index. However, during the past eight months, inflation in pet-related products and services has only worsened, rising in some cases to record-setting levels.
In February, when annual CPI declined to 6%, the catch-all “pets, pet products and services” index rose to 10.9%, veterinary services jumped nearly 2 percentage points to 10.3% and pet food increased to 15.2%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Meanwhile, a survey of 2,000 dog and cat owners showed almost 63 percent of pet owners claimed they had difficulty paying an unexpected vet bill because of inflation, Forbes Advisor reported in December.
“A vet bill of $999 or less would cause 42% of pet owners to go into debt, while a vet bill of $499 or less would cause 28% of pet owners to go into debt,” the outlet said.
In 2022, 44 percent of pet owners revealed they used a credit card to pay the bill, while 5 percent took out a loan, and 18 percent said they had to take money from savings for the vet bill.
The outlet also noted that “while the majority of pet owners have held onto their pets, 3% of pet owners said in the past year they gave their pet to an animal shelter, rescue organization for adoption or to a friend or family member.”
The report added that 12 percent of those who surrendered their animal claimed inflation made pet food and veterinary care too expensive.
Meanwhile, Larry Summers, a Harvard professor, economist, director of the National Economic Council under former President Barack Obama, and Treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton, recently voiced his opinion on the inflation issue.
Summers noted, “I think more broadly, it seems to me that we don’t have a lot of evidence of a basic downwards trend in inflation. It looks to me more like the inflation story is fluctuation around an underlying inflation rate of 4.5 or 5. And if that’s close to right, it suggests that the Fed has considerably more work to do.”
Now, business leaders expect inflation to increase more than expected this month, per the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s business inflation expectations (BIE), Breitbart News reported Wednesday.
Related — Summers: Core Inflation Growth Is Out of Control; We’ll Need “Significant Dislocation” in Economy to Get Inflation to Normal
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