Rising costs make it hardeo manage.

The economy is not good and it's not good.

The world wide prices keep going up.

They know you're going to y it.

They're going to raise the price of Lin Wood all on te pandemic.

President Trump and I haveo take hold of this now livea PBS39 special Inflation Survival Guide.

Here's your host Hayden Mi.

Hello and welcome.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Hayden Mitman.

By now, you've noticed the prices on just about everyg are rising.

Over the next 30 minutes, l get an understanding of whs happening and more importa, what you can do to help son the blow on your household.

We're live from the public media Center in Bethlehem, PBS39 and 91.3 w o.

We are proud to bring you s program.

The pandemic has taken a tl higher and higher, adding o the burden.

Now look at this.

Consumer prices a key mease of inflation.

Consumer prices jumped 7% t year, the highest level sie 1982, and we're feeling it everywhere at the grocery store.

Prices are up 6.5% in the t year.

At the pump and heating and cooling our homes, energy s rose more than 29% in 2021.

If you've been in the markt for a new or used car, youe seen it to used auto pricee up a staggering amount almt 40%.

And home prices, not to men rent, are way up to nearly% in the last year.

Tonight we'll break all ofs down and hopefully give you some ideas for your budgett we have a lot to get to.

We'll hear from folks who e struggling to make ends met and gas to help guide the .

Whether it's paying rent, controlling your grocery bl or preparng for what's nex, we're going to try to get answers.

First off, let's find out what's happening in the ecy and why we're seeing such p increases right now.

Our first guest is Ahmed, Vermont.

He's an associate professof economics and Lehigh University.

Professor Roman, welcome.

Thank you for joining us t. Thanks for having me.

First, I want to ask you wt is inflation and why is it happening?

Yeah, So I think the pithyy to think about it is inflan is where you have too much money chasing too few prods and it just creates this st of imbalance where we havea lot of demand and we can'tt the supply.

Now that can happen for sht periods of time, that can happen for a few products.

But when it happens for a e direct, you know, longer period.

And when it happens acrosse board, many products you ce the kind of scenario that I think we're seeing right n. Beyond that, there's a coue of different flavors of inflation and it's we don't know which one it's going o be.

There are a couple of, you know, history gives us some guidance.

Post-World War Two inflatin short but quick 1970s infln long, more protracted.

We see elements of both in today's economy and so I tk policymakers and all of uss consumers and producers are still sort of wondering whh version of this is how mucf an impact has the pandemic?

Quite a bit.

I don't think anyone woulde surprised by that.

It's created the supply chn crazy problems that we've n and that has really exacerd this demand supply mismatch that we're seeing the maybe unfortunate component heres that reminds us a little bt more of the 1970s where ift persists and the Fed has to kind of cut the brakes in s of demand, we might end uph sort of a shrunken economy.

And you know, one hates toe the dreaded s word stagfla, but it is something that I think policymakers are very committed to avoid.

But also it's on the radar screen.

When might we see relief?

I know the Federal Reserves might raise interest rateso help deal with inflation.

Yeah, how could that have n effect?

Yeah.

So I think that's part of e arsenal of what they have n terms of tools.

Of course they've this hasn not too long ago.

A few months ago, they wert even talking about interest rate increases rather liket of bond reducing the bond purchasing.

But now they're being muche aggressive and I think ther aggression is well-founded.

So I think, you know, three four rate increases this yr is probably in the picture.

And I think that will hopey at least to some degree ren the economy back to somethg that will tamping down the price increases.

Are there any bright spotsn inflation?

I've heard that could indie a good economy?

Well, it's absolutely truet there are many great signsf this current economy.

I think also if you're a borrower right, if you're actually borrowing money, f you have a mortgage, if yor student have student loans, they actually erode the bun suddenness of the actual l. So for those who are debto, they're actually some brigt stuff.

The flip side, of course, s creditors could be really e hurt by this.

So that's one of the pernis aspects of inflation is tht actually creates kind of arbitrary winners and lose.

And the other thing to conr is actually high inflationo often means volatile infla.

And so then you don't knowt kind of price changes are g to happen, which again cres an arbitrary kind of winner loser situation and that creates maybe some problemn financial markets where pee are well, I don't even know what's going to happen, wht kind of rate of return I'm going to get.

So maybe I won't even both.

And that's a problem for te overall economy.

Can you tell me why it seed like prices on everything e going up?

How come it's not just one industry or another?

Yeah, I think again comingk to the idea of the pandemit has really created a situan where we've shifted demandm the services to products to manufacturing goods.

So we're seeing this acrose board because I think the manufacturing for a varietf reasons related to Covid bt also other supply chain problems has not been ableo keep up with that demand.

And then we also have to remember we are in a globad community the things that e happening in China, which relates to their sort of zo Covid policy.

They're very forceful apprh to to Covid has created a situation where the manufacturing goods that we purchased from them are in short supply.

So all these things are happening kind of simultaneously.

And so I think it's really created the sort of manifestation of across the board of price increases.

Dr Amon, I thank you for breaking that all down and thank you so much for takig the time out to join us tonight.

Thanks.

People are feeling the pin.

That's what I found on a rt visit to the Allentown Fairgrounds farmers market.

There's no shortage of viewpoints there.

Inflation, a lot of thingsu blame it on.

I hate to say, but I thinke greed involved or people, u know, capitalizing on the situation that we're currey in the proof of that.

But for the first of my li, I'm not clipping coupons, t I'm looking for specials.

That's something I never ry did.

I don't know if that comesh getting older, but it's something I'm doing now and it's effective if you do it correctly.

I'm seeing it in everythinn food, especially Lee in fih and meats.

Very high.

Of course, the gas has been high for quite a long timed where he's going to have te president's going to have o take hold of this and you , people are not going to bee to survive feed their fami, which is sad.

I blame it all on the pand.

You know, it's holding everything back and it's jt one of these things we just out and end up waiting to e what happens.

Everyday items, definitely everyday items just because they know that, you know, that's a common thing that everyone's going to buy and they're never going to stop buying it.

So why not just raise the e on it?

Same thing with gas pricesd everything like that.

I don't see a light at thed of the tunnel.

I don't know.

I want to welcome our next guest.

She heads community Action Lehigh Valley, the organizd housing assistance program.

Second Harvest Food Bank ad dozens of other services tt are in demand.

Don Greg Schultz, the exece director and she joins us .

Don inflation typically his middle and lower income residents the hardest.

What are you seeing from se of the people you serve?

A lot of people are telline that they feel like there'a modern day gentrification g on, especially in the housg industry.

Developers are scooping up properties and buildings ad creating new apartment buildings, and they're profiting from it, which il right.

Everyone has to make a liv.

But what it's doing is it's moving people who were ablo live in the city at one ti.

It's moving them further ad further away.

They're being evicted from their apartments.

There are people coming inm New York and New Jersey whn work virtually.

So it's cheaper for them to live in housing in Allento, Bethlehem and Easton.

They live in.

They're coming here to scop all the apartments that thy can and people have nowhero go.

So there's this need for lo moderate income housing, bt people really don't have ps that they can afford any m. Are you seeing people thisr that you might not have sen last year?

Absolutely, absolutely.

There are some homeowners o are having difficulty stayg in their homes, paying ther mortgages, so they're lookg for apartments.

They're becoming renters instead of homeowners.

So it's been a very diffict market to find places to le in again.

People don't have many plas or many options to go to.

Well, then what options mit there be?

What services might exist?

I know there's some funds t there from the pandemic tht might be available for renl assistance.

What programs exist for pee that find themselves needig help?

Well, right now, community action is has taken the len running the emergency Rentl Assistance Program.

We've already distributed 1 million to people who needo pay their rent.

We will help them to pay it back a year and three monts forward as they are tryingo figure out how to pay for e incomes that they may havet during Covid.

In addition to having distributed 21 million alr, we have another 20 milliont we have to distribute and e we hear that there's anoth5 from the era to program ths coming down the pike.

So there's lots of fundingt there available for people.

They have two income qualid to be within 80% of the ara medium income.

But where we're helping the people who need it, the prm is once they get this fundn to help pay their rent, landlords have been still raising the cost.

Landlords are taking advane of this market to and theye raising rents by 40 50%.

Even so, Gary Day almost mg it more difficult for peope who are out there struggli.

Absolutely.

What might someone be ableo do if someone sees this prm tonight?

What can they do if they nd that help?

Well, they can give us a c. They can go on our websiteu know, community action Dory Park community action Lehih Valley .org and we would be absolutely happy to help tm through the process of howo get their hands on some oft funding because there's ply available.

Still, we just need to gett out to the community.

I really appreciate that Dn Conshohocken, Executive Director of Community Actin Lehigh Valley Thank you soh for taking the time out tok to me today.

I really do appreciate it.

Absolutely.

We continue this special program Inflation Survival Guide on PBS39 and on our o station WLVT are and streag on Facebook and the Web at PBS39.org.

Our next guest will help wh saving money at the grocery store.

But before that, let's hear more from shoppers about rg costs and what they're doig about it.

I look at the sales and som going to buy things and the things I can freeze.

I'm going to freeze.

So I'm looking at things we I can get it, get good banr my buck.

Seeing pretty much everywh.

Most people are seeing thes tanks.

I'm seeing a lot in the fod shopping and I do my food shopping here at the farmes market in two of the other local places and across the board.

It's going up there.

Why don't you just have top around?

But then you can't do too h shopping around because thn you're extending gas goingm place to place.

All my prices that I spente getting, unfortunately, I e to call the vendor, can thy get what I need?

The supply charge right nod then can you know the pricg always changes and it's vey hard when customers are disappointed they want anss right away trying to lowere temperature in my home.

I got into canning last ye.

My garden is twice the sizw that it was last year showd them that you really don'td them that much like we're e to still provide for ourses by going and growing our on things.

You know, getting our own produce and kind of just bg a lot more self-sufficient.

But I do think it will eventually get better withe economy rising people going back to work.

Our next guest is a shoppig expert.

She's a dietitian with News Markets.

She has some great ideas fr feeding yourself and your family while staying on a budget.

Joining us remotely from hr own kitchen is Meredith McGrath.

Meredith, it's a pleasure o welcome you.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

So like everyone right nowy family's weekly order at te shopping market is more tht has been in the past.

What's the first thing I co to help that bill?

Yeah.

Unfortunately, consumers ae seeing the rising cost of s everywhere, particularly wn it comes to food.

I have three little ones ad they're little, but they're mighty and they certainly a lot.

So when it comes to headino the grocery store, a few ts that you can do to kind of decrease this burden.

The number one thing is toe a list and make sure it's a good list clean, neat, organized.

One thing you want to think about is what does your schedule look like for that week?

What kind of meals?

What kind of snacks are you going to be preparing?

One of our tips that I do I actually use a recipe app y phone so that I select the recipes that I want to coor that week and then it goes right to a grocery list.

Then what I do is I check y refrigerator, I check my freezer or check my pantryo that I don't over buy agai.

This really helps me make e that I'm only getting the things that I need.

Other things you can do lok for items that really streh out that door or have multi uses.

So one of my favorites is a fresh salsa.

I use this all my eggs in e morning.

I use it a topper on a sal.

You can use it in sandwich.

Also like on grilled chickt dinner at night.

Speaking of chicken, anothr thing I love rotisserie chicken.

It's something great that u can do for a weekday meal.

It's affordable when you tk about the actual price per serving.

And then you can have lefts in a chicken salad wrap the next day or again, add it o one of your salads.

My first thought is to maye buy generic brand items, bt what do you do for, say, mk and cheese and meats?

How do you make that dollar stretch?

So there's a few other this that you could do when it s to making that dollar streh and you know exactly what u said.

Compare compare prices whet comes to brands.

So when you do go shopping, make sure you have enough e to make those good decisio.

One tip that I often do wht comes to decreasing the amt of meat I use, I actually e them right here.

I use mushrooms.

Mushrooms are very, very affordable and what you cao is you could dice them up y finely and you could add tm to any of your ground meat.

So I add them to ground bef when it comes to meatloaf, meatballs, tacos, different kind of casseroles.

And it allows you to have e same amount of food that ye preparing when it comes toe recipe, but you're going te using less meat.

Other things you can do isu could also look at purchasg some family packs because s always cheaper when you bun bulk and then make sure you when you go home that you e the time to kind of portioe mountain to servings.

One of the guests that youd on earlier said that she bs large amounts of meat and n freezes them.

And that is also a really d tip that consumers can use.

What about coupon clipping?

Does it have any impact?

Could that really make a difference for some peoples homes?

Absolutely.

When it comes to looking fr savings coupons, looking ae circulars, any extra dealst you can get is going to be important, but you really t to be careful and read thoe coupons very closely becaue sometimes they forces almoo buying things that we don't need or amounts we don't nd and any time we overbuy ory something we don't need and ends up in our trash can.

We're ultimately wasting my so we want to be careful t. So really make sure that iu are putting those coupons,t is something that you needd it makes sense.

So it sounds it almost sous like there's a balancing at here because I would thinkd maybe it's I'm naive, but wouldn't buying in bulk hep save money, especially now?

Again, it really comes dowo your situation and what kif things you are buying in b.

Do you have the storage capacity?

Are you getting things that have a long shelf label sou want to be reading those aspirations?

Do you have enough freezer space?

You have enough refrigeratr space.

You know, when I think abot fruits and vegetables and buying fresh althouh freshs really fabulous again, if t goes bad too quickly and es up in the trash, that's not good.

So buying things like frozn fruits, frozen vegetables h are very affordable if youe the space buying these in e quantities makes sense.

Not only is it going to hep you with your budget, but s also going to really boostr nutrition.

I can't thank you enough.

Thank you so much, Meredit, for joining us today.

I really do appreciate you joining the show.

Thank you.

We at PBS39 want to inviteu to join us for a special presentation next week.

A community conversation ss n our schools will air Thursday, February 10th at seven pm We'll take stock f the last two years of schol during the pandemic.

How our children's lives he changed and how the stressn our kids, our teachers andr families have strained menl health across the board.

Hosted by Brittany Sweeney, it's an hour long program.

A community conversation ss in our schools.

Thursday, February 10th, at seven pm Right here on PBS.

Now let me welcome our finl guest.

He's a financial advisor wh his own show.

More than Money.

That airs Tuesday nights at 7:30pm here on PBS39.

Jean Dickerson is the founr and president of MTM Finanl Group and Bethlehem.

Jean, thank you for joinine today.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

So for those of us who are thinking about planning and investing our money, what n we do at a time like this n saving seems almost imposs?

It is a challenge.

There's no question about .

Number one, you have to be realistic.

There are times when saving isn't in your best interes.

You've got to make sure tht your bills are paid.

You're staying current, yoe not falling further behind.

So put priorities to your spending patterns.

Make sure that you're coveg all the important things f. And when you're at a positn where you can save money, that's when you can start making decisions that might help you battle this inflationary problem.

Is there anything I can dof I'm an investor or if I'm protecting my savings?

What can I do now?

What before things might me get worse?

Yeah, and things may very l get worse.

They're worse.

There were conversations at early on that this was a translator or event that inflation was going to be e for three or four months an fade away, it does not appr that it's going to be the .

So folks should be preparer a rather extended period of higher inflation.

One of the things that youe all investments are created equal.

There are certain investmes that inflation will hurt rr significantly other investments.

Real estate, for example, commodities often precious metals, excuse me, are nots inflation fighting assets.

Those are things that you n add to your investments tht will position yourself to t least have the chance to ft back against a pretty tough foe.

What about lower income individuals and people that might not have money to pun to invest?

How do you how do you makee you make it through this period, this tricky period?

This is the most devastatig scenario that I can envisin for folks who are in their absolute worst position to fight back.

The shadow taxes that are g created by higher energy c, higher housing costs, highr food costs they can be offt by many people in the midde income area in the high ine area.

For folks who are on limitd budgets, these are vital.

These are necessity, ease f life.

They must meet those.

So at this moment in time,e challenge on them is insan.

Li difficult and not only s it take some courage to fae that it may take some creativity.

We've heard the term side hustle.

It may be a time when these folks are going to need sie hustles.

Maybe one, maybe two side hustles in order to bridget income need to pay for thoe necessities until this dissipates.

And it will dissipate.

As I've heard that inflatin might be an indicator thate have a strong economy or at least a good economy.

Should people be asking for raises?

Oh, absolutely.

But not necessarily for the inflationary reason.

If you're happy in your jo, yes, you've got to have a e increase that's commensurae with the inflation rate.

Otherwise you're falling bd if inflation's at 7% and yu get a 5% raise, which traditionally in the last w years has been pretty good, you're fallen behind by two percentage points.

You haven't kept up with inflation, but you might wt to consider asking for a re because as the professor s, supply and demand there art nearly enough workers.

There are not nearly enough qualified people to fill te jobs.

Some say there are 10 milln unfilled jobs as we speak.

So if your employer isn't perhaps interested, willin, able to pay you as you shod be paid, there are lots of employers out there despere looking for good people and paying very, very high wag.

That's actually a really gd point.

It's almost as if the tides changed and the powers wite worker in that situation, t absolutely is.

There was a discussion durg the previous administration about raising the minimum , the minimum wage has alreay been raised.

We see positions advertised consistently 2025, $30 an r starting rates.

So a minimum wage is a long forgotten relic of historyn today's economy.

The power absolutely is wih the employee.

If you've got skills, you'e going to have multiple job offers whenever you want t. Let me ask you for a histol perspective.

This has happened in the p. Of course, how has the Amen society gotten back out and gotten back into a place we things seem to be a reasone rate when they go to the se or go to a gas station?

Yeah, for many of our listeners, they remember te Jimmy Carter years very, vy well.

For some of our listeners,y weren't even born.

And when inflation hit 10,, 15%, mortgage rates were a7 18, 20%.

You could get a CD at 10% d you felt like you had won e lottery, except you were falling behind with your purchasing power.

Inflation was so high.

There was a change of administration.

There was a change of fiscl policy and fiscal policy ha tremendous amount of impacn inflationary issues in my opinion, the energy inflatn is 100% a fiscal policy is.

When we change fiscal poli, inflation will change with.

Following Jimmy Carter, the policies change.

Inflation dropped dramatic.

And if you had said back ie Jimmy Carter years, there t be a time when instead of % mortgage, you would pay 3%.

We thought you were crazy.

And yet that's exactly what happened with changes in policy.

And as we've mentioned ear, the Federal Reserve may che interest rates to be able o address this.

What might that mean?

On the other end if interet rates raise?

Wouldn't mortgages cost thm more people eventually?

There's no question about .

The short term that the Fed controls are short term ras that the Fed controls is a starting oint.

It has very little initialo do with long term rates, 30 year mortgages, etc.

But it tends to fuel the fe that will eventually raise rates, which will cool the desire for real estate as s people can afford to buy ls of chunks of real estate.

And that will also cool the inflationary fires on the l estate side and many other sides as well.

So if that happens soon and I've heard talk that it mit happen in March if interest rates might change, does tt mean now is a good time toy a home or buy a car?

Or do you wait until Marchn that rate might change?

Yeah, it really does depenn your personal set of circumstances.

If you're in a position whe you're starting a young fay and you should have a homeu buy it now.

Even as people in the Jimmy Carter years paid 15% morte rates, you buy it now becae 3% isn't dreadful.

Is it better than for, of course, but the issue is yr personal circumstance has e the driving determinant of whether you make these majr moves now or wait for for a later time.

So it really seems like ths a I know I've mentioned itt a balancing act is the rigt decision to make.

Have the Fed changed the interest rates or raise interest rates?

Is there a different way to solve this problem?

Well, the problem sadly agn is created predominantly iy opinion, not by the supply chain but by fiscal policy.

When we spend trillions of dollars that we're not brig in through taxes, we're siy printing money.

As the professor said, lots more money chasing fewer g. Inflation is an absolute ed result.

It could be expected and predicted.

So fiscal policy change is important.

The Fed response is import, but of course, the way Americans react is importas well.

Jean, thank you so much for your time.

I really appreciate you beg here.

Yeah, that'll do it for our show.

We hope Inflation Survival Guide can help you and your family get through these tg times from all of us at PB9 and 91.3 WLVT.

Thank you so much for watcg and listening.

I'm Hayden Mitman.

Have a great night.