Gas prices bring down the cost of Utah goods

Plummeting gasoline prices have brought the lowest prices for the basket of 15 common household and entertainment items the Deseret News has tracked since last April.

But Utahns continue to struggle in making ends meet, and some wonder whether President-elect Barack Obama can make much of a dent on his own in this complicated and intertwined global economy.

"I don't believe he really has any power" to move food prices, for instance, said Annette Webb, a shopper who was outside Dan's Foods in Foothill Village on Wednesday.

"I think the American dollar is going to have less value, so everything's going to be (more expensive)," said Salt Lake resident Donna Young.

Even so, the price march upward might start to slip, considering food costs' link to the price of oil, in terms of fertilizer and transportation, Salt Lake City resident Steven Dean said.

"I'm sort of expecting food prices to decline a little, but I'm not sure if (stores) are going to pass those on to consumers," Dean said.

If unemployment rises — it was 3.5 percent in Utah as of September, and 6.1 percent nationally — Dean says prices are going to have to come down.

"You have to be able to sell stuff," he said.

For now, he'll continue to use coupons and follow weekly ads, a practice he surmises saves him about 10 percent per shopping trip, virtually insulating him from price hikes for months.

But coupon use might not provide enough help for some of Utah's low-income residents.

The Utah Food Bank is seeing an average 30 percent increase in the requests for emergency food from partner pantries and agencies statewide, said spokeswoman Jessica Pugh.

"So many people in our community are living paycheck to paycheck. With the rapidly increasing costs, it's making people choose either to pay rent this month or food to feed their kids," Pugh said.

Utahns are responding. The Food Bank has seen a 5 percent increase in food donations over the same time last year. "However, that 5 percent increase in food donations is not keeping up with the 30 percent increase in demand for food," Pugh said.

Demand at food pantries has been on the rise most of this year with the economic downturn. Some 13,500 construction jobs were lost in September, compared with the same month in 2007. Utah personal bankruptcies also are up some 42 percent in the past year.

In the basket of 15 common consumer items tracked by the Deseret News since April, between October and November, the price of the selected items fell by $17.11, mainly due to a $12.20 savings on a 10-gallon tank of gas.

Gas prices went from $3.56 per gallon to $2.34 a gallon in that month alone, for a $1.22 savings per gallon. A sale that shaved $6 off a pair of blue jeans ($5 without a ShopKo loyalty card) also helped bring the overall cost down.

All told, the cost of those goods dropped nearly 11 percent in the past month.

The goods are also 4 percent cheaper than they were in April. On Wednesday, the goods cost $140.49 ($141.49 without the store loyalty card); last April, they cost $146.63.

But this is not all good news.

The price of food items being tracked remained steady or went up in the past month. Frozen corn went up 7 percent. Eggs and pizza went up more than 3 percent, and Oreo cookies shot up 16 percent.

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E-mail: jtcook@desnews.com

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