MediterraneanGrocery Wholesalers in Phoenix, AZ

No one likes paying more for less. But if you live in metro Phoenix, you’re doing just that.

Inflation here is higher than anywhere else in the country, according to a recent study from the Common Sense Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank based in Phoenix.

Inflation hits all Americans, but none more than the Arizonans who have faced an unprecedented 10.9 percent spike in prices over the last 12 months — 3 full points higher than the rest of the nation.

“It’s impacting the typical household significantly,” Jim Rounds, an economic analyst based in Tempe, told Phoenix New Times. “This is close to the worst it’s going to be.”

In February 2021, a gallon of gas in Arizona cost $2.25. Today, it’s $4.63, more than double, according to AAA.

“The gas price issue is a real problem,” Rounds said. “It impacts when you buy milk or cheese because those items have to be transported.”

Yet it’s not just fuel prices that are on the rise, trickling beyond the gas pump onto the shelves of grocery stores.

Remember when a gallon of milk cost $1.98 in Phoenix last year? Today, Valley residents are not likely to to get a gallon of whole milk for their Apple Jacks for less than $3.26, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s March report.

Inflation is a growing problem in metro Phoenix.

Since October, prices for everyday necessities have jumped by at least 1 percent every month.

Phoenix lends itself to unprecedented inflation because of its rapidly growing economy, Rounds said. Stronger economic growth leads to greater demand for products.

That doesn’t bode well for Valley residents as businesses continue struggling to move food, beverages, apparel, and sundries to consumers amid spiking fuel prices and a shortage of shipping containers, among other snags.

“A high-growth region like greater Phoenix is under more pressure to deliver to consumers,” Rounds said. “But right now, it can’t.”

It all started with the pandemic.

Demand for gas, recreation, and services tanked as a mass exodus from the office corralled people at home in isolation. When people went back to work last year, demand returned to something resembling the pre-coronavirus norm.

Supply, however, still lagged.

“COVID still has an impact on what is happening now,” Rounds said. “It is causing this lingering effect that’s hitting the pocketbooks of every household in Arizona.”

Inflation has an outsized effect on low-income people, economists say.

The average Valley household is spending an additional $4,462 on food, housing, transportation, medical care, and other goods and services compared to just one year ago, according to the Common Sense Institute study.

Since February 2021, all items have increased in price. Fuel is up 44 percent and energy is up 29 percent in Arizona, the study reveals.

The study, citing the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, also points out that housing costs have jumped more than 12 percent — close to three times greater than the rest of the nation.

New data from Rent.com shows renters are paying 81 percent more for a studio apartment in Gilbert compared to this time last year — the biggest increase in apartment rent in any city in America.

“Housing affordability is a major problem,” Rounds said. “Housing prices here are rising more than anywhere else.”

In 2020, the cost of energy, apparel, commodities, education, durables, recreation, and transportation all fell. Annual inflation from 2010 to 2019 was just 2 percent in Arizona, on average.

A lot has happened since then.

“The Ukraine crisis and American response to it are likely to put further pressure on commodity, energy, and gas prices,” the recent study’s researchers concluded. “For these reasons, we believe further upward consumer price movement is likely over the next three to six months, rather than an easing.”

Rounds says it could take until the end of the calendar year for rapid inflation to subside in metro Phoenix.

Other experts predict early 2023.

“It’s going to be sticky for a little while,” Rounds said. “Prices will stay stuck at this higher level for a while longer.”

In January, the Phoenix metro area had the second-highest inflation after the Atlanta metro area. But inflation is up more than 2 percent since then, putting the Valley of the Sun at the top of the list.

Rounds advises low-income people in the Valley to make a conscious effort to live within their means but not to completely shut down spending.

The good news, he says, is that Phoenix boasts one of the strongest economies in the country.

“There is a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “We will get through this.”

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PHOENIX — Concerts, shows, new restaurants, and fashion events... there are plenty of activities to keep Arizonans busy this weekend! Here’s our weekend round-up of things to do.

Yoga in the OutfieldWhen: Saturday, May 14, from 7:30-11amCost: $25Location: Salt River Fields at Talking Stick [7555 N. Pima Rd]

Scottsdale Sangria FestWhen: Sat, May 14, from 2 p.m. – 6 p.m.Where: Wasted Grain in Scottsdale [7295 East Stetson Drive]Cost: tickets start at $30

STARS ON ICEThe cast includes Nathan Chen; Alysa Liu, Jason Brown, Vincent Zhou, Mariah Bell, Madison Hubbell & Zachary Donohue, Madison Chock & Evan Bates, Alexa Knierim & Brandon Frazier, plus Mirai Nagasu.When: Friday, May 20 at 7:30 p.m.Location: Gila River Arena in Glendale [9400 West Maryland Avenue]Cost: Tickets start $12

T-PAIN concertLocation: The Van Buren Phoenix [401 W. Van Buren Street]When: May 13 at 8 p.m.Keep in mind, this concert is for ages 13 and up.Cost: Advance Price: $39.50 + fees / Day of Show Price: $45 + fees, per website information.

Smokey Robinson concertLocation: Camp Verde Cliff Castle Casino [555 W Middle Verde Road in Camp Verde, AZ]When: Saturday, May 14, at 8 p.m.Cost: Tickets start at $50

Jurassic Park In ConcertWhen: There are different showings this week, click here to view the schedule.Location: Phoenix Symphony Hall [75 N 2nd St, Phoenix, AZ 85004]Cost varies.

May horse show at WestWorld of ScottsdaleWhat to expect: The show is hosted by the Scottsdale Saddle Club. For more information, click here.When: May 14 from 9 a.m.- 4 p.m.Location: 16601 N Pima Road

Scottsdale Fashion WeekWhen: May 11-15Cost: Tickets start at $75.Check here for locations and daily schedules.

“Quinceañera Summer Showcase”What to expect: If you’re looking for ‘the dress’, the crown, and everything else for the big day, you’ll want to check out this event in the West Valley.Location: Desert Sky Mall [7611 W Thomas Road]When: May 14 from 1 p.m.- 4 p.m.

Art & Sake - Taiko DrummingWhat to expect: The event will feature various Japanese artists paired with “delicious Japanese sake varieties,” according to the Japanese Garden’s website.Cost: General $25, Member $20When: Sunday, May 15, the event will begin at: 6:00 p.m.Location: Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix, Arizona [1125 N. 3rd Ave]

NEW PLACES TO CHECK OUT

Elevated Seltzer in PhoenixA family-owned business from Colorado is tapping into the Valley with a hard-seltzer taproom!

According to Warren Wood, Founder & CMO of Elevated Seltzer, all the seltzers at Elevated Seltzer are gluten-free, 100% natural, GMO-free, contain zero sugars and zero carbs.

Colados Coffee & Crepes new Phoenix locationThe 7th Street and Oak location has been in the works for the Reina family for four years and now its finally open!

The coffee: Berni and Yesica Reina are from Sonora, Mexico and, according to their son Aaron, people from that region make their coffee with a cloth filter and that process is called Colado.

The crepes: Inspired by a family trip in 2013, their love for crepes fueled the Reina family to share the French dish with others in the Valley. Their dishes were a hit and led them to open their first location in 2014.

The MexicanoThe Mexicano is providing you with the opportunity to build your own margarita!

With over 30 toppings and no limit on how many toppings you can grab, the possible toppings combinations are endless!

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Canyon Coaster Adventure ParkLooking for thrill, beautiful scenery, and cooler temperatures? Then you’ll want to fill up your gas tank and head over to Canyon Coaster Adventure Park in Williams, Arizona!

“We have the Canyon Coaster, which is the Mountain Coaster, it’s approximately a mile long and it has a 310-foot drop in elevation,” said Bruce Voigt in an interview with ABC15. “So, you get in the cart, ride up the hill and when you get to the top, you control your speed on the way down. At times you’re 35 feet in the air, it has two 360s in it, you’ll get up to speeds of 35 miles per hour if you choose to.”

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Stagecoach Country RoadhouseWant to get away from the heat? There’s a new restaurant in Sedona that “brings live music, dancing, bull riding.” According to their website, the Roadhouse is known for its hand cut steaks, BBQ and its craft cocktails; more information about this place can be found here.

If you live in one of metro Phoenix’s posh neighborhoods like North Scottsdale or Fountain Hills, chances are you have a taste for ritzy spas, well-manicured fairways, upscale shops, and sumptuous restaurants.

And chances are, a whole lot of your neighbors hate you.

A recent study found that Arizona hates rich people more than any other state. And with the richest 1 percent controlling nearly as much of the global wealth as the other 99 percent combined, maybe that's not entirely surprising.

The new research published on May 12 comes from Online Money Advisor, a global finance data clearinghouse based in the United Kingdom. Researchers analyzed more than 50,000 geotagged tweets from this year mentioning billionaires, and weighed how negative or positive each tweet was.

“Arizona is the state which dislikes the super-rich the most in the U.S.,” declares a recent email in revealing the study's conclusion, based on a list of cities that love to hate the richest of the filthy rich.

As the only state with three cities — Tucson, Mesa, and Phoenix — in the top 10 list of American municipalities that hate billionaires the most, Arizona earns the No. 1 distinction.

Tucson and Mesa harbored the most hate, ranking in first and second place, respectively, among nearly 20,000 cities. In Tucson, nearly 70 percent of tweets about billionaires contained acrimonious language.

The study didn't share examples.

Phoenix wasn’t far behind, ranking seventh.

Arizona is full of rich people, and people who hate the rich. That’s because of Arizona’s ever-widening wealth gap, says Tom Rex, associate director of the Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research at Arizona State University.

“If you have a large segment of the population that’s not doing well but see others doing well, it will cause resentment,” Rex says.

More than 7 million people call Arizona home, but much of the state’s wealth is concentrated inside a town of just 14,000.

With an average household income of well over $300,000 and an average home value of nearly $4 million, Paradise Valley is the wealthiest place in Arizona.

PV also ranks No. 14 among the wealthiest localities in the United States.

The town has been home to celebrities like Emma Stone, Michael Phelps, and Alice Cooper. Plenty of other big names including Ice T, Charles Barkley, and Danica Patrick live elsewhere in the Valley.

Hop on Route 60 headed east, and you’ll see another side of Arizona.

Around 180 miles northeast of Paradise Valley is Whiteriver, situated on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. It’s a town that in 2016 had an unemployment rate of 53 percent.

Then there’s Bapchule, just a 30- to 40-minute drive south of Phoenix on the Gila River Indian Reservation, where the average household income three years ago was barely over $11,000.

But one metro area, Tucson, exemplifies both sides of the wealth gap in Arizona, and it’s the most billionaire-hating city in America.

Catalina Foothills, a suburb just north of Tucson, is the city with the worst income inequality in Arizona, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The bureau uses a measure of income inequality expressed on a scale that ranges from zero to 1, where zero represents perfect equality and 1 represents the highest level of inequality. On that scale, Catalina Foothills has the highest coefficient of any city or town statewide.

That’s where “the most expensive home in Tucson,” a palatial hacienda-style compound on 50 acres, sold for a record-setting $4.45 million just two months ago.

Nearby Tanque Verde, also a North Tucson suburb, is the most educated locality and one of the wealthiest in the state. Yet Tucson has a national reputation for destitution.

“It’s not a coincidence that Tucson is No. 1 on that list,” Rex points out.

The city is home to some of the most opulent and most derelict neighborhoods in the Grand Canyon State. It’s also more politically liberal than much of the rest of Arizona, Rex contends.

In a 2020 report, Pew Research Center claimed there are 28 states with worse income inequality than Arizona. But that study failed to take one key issue into account that's unique to Arizona, experts say.

“We have so many people with second homes in Arizona,” Rex says. “They buy and build big, expensive homes, but they aren’t considered Arizonans. If you could include those seasonal people, we’d rank worse than we do.”

According to the Arizona Office of Tourism, more than 100,000 Canadians spend winters in a second home, condo, or timeshare in Arizona.

Even more domestic part-time residents flock to Arizona in the winters from colder states, especially the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and the upper Rockies.

During the winters, some of the most affluent people in Arizona are not Arizonans at all.

“The housing market is seeing rapid increases in value right now,” Rex says. “The rich people are the ones benefiting from that. If you’re not a homeowner, you’re not seeing a dime.”

Young, wealthy people are increasingly choosing to follow the example of the omnipresent pronged saguaro cactus, and plant their roots in metro Phoenix and Tucson. And yet, young folks are the most likely to resent the rich, a 2019 survey shows.

It’s a dichotomy between the young poor and the young rich, who are “a vocal minority” online, according to Phoenix-based social media guru Terry Kurtzer.

Kurtzer owns a social media marketing company and has taught social media literacy classes in Phoenix since 2012.

“People like to spew hate on social media because there’s nobody around to punch them in the face,” he says. “They hide behind screens with no consequences until one of the platforms shuts them off.”

Kurtzer questions the findings of last week’s study.

“I think social media skews a response to inflammatory topics,” he offers. “Haters are gonna hate. The people who couldn’t care less aren’t engaging with those topics online.”

Stephanie Tepper, a graduate student at Cornell University in New York and researcher for the Online Money Advisor study, suggested it was neither healthy nor necessary to fixate on how and where the super-wealthy spend their money.

“We may see the opinions and attitudes of billionaires as a source of authority, especially on topics like investment,” Tepper says. “The tweets of billionaires — likely posted without much thought for the more average people in the world — should probably not be taken as authoritative advice.”

But viral billionaires like Elon Musk, who recently bought Twitter, have massive influence in the online space to the point where even their tweets can drastically affect the stock market.

The stock market might be “a rich man’s game,” says Rex, the local economist, but that doesn’t mean you should avoid taking an interest in the dalliances of Musk or Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who was named the world’s most hated billionaire in last week’s study.

“It ends up having an impact on you,” Rex states. “The stock market is distant to most people, but it influences the health of the economy, which spreads to everyone else.”

Ten years ago, Rex told Arizona State's Cronkite News that the wealth gap wasn’t getting the attention it deserved. One decade later, he told Phoenix New Times the exact same thing.

“We continue to have policies that, in essence, foster greater income inequality in Arizona,” he says. “I’m amazed that there hasn’t been more resentment in the U.S.”

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PHOENIX — Angelo Sosa, star of “Top Chef”, debuts his first Arizona restaurant, Tía Carmen, inside the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa.

The Southwestern eatery goes beyond vibrant drinks and dishes — it pays homage to the region with local Arizona partnerships embedded and showcased throughout the space.

The concept of Tía Carmen hits home for the Executive Chef, Angelo Sosa.

“At nine years old, my tía Carmen taught me the beauty and the power that food holds,” said Sosa to ABC15.

DISHES TO DEVOURAlthough the dishes are Southwestern-inspired, Chef Sosa hopes that the dinners feel like “tía Carmen is in the back” cooking and that their taste buds trigger a memory from the past and create a new one at the restaurant.

Some of their most popular items include Tuna crudo, Tri-Tip Kabob, and the Ember Roasted Purple Yam.

“LOCALIZATION”The restaurant pays homage to the Southwest through the partnership of local businesses in the Valley; like meats from Schreiner's in Phoenix, vegetables from their own garden at the resort, and custom dinner plates made by Blue Door Ceramics.

“The terrane, the tenure, with Christiane plates [from Blue Door Ceramics]… it’s almost as if mother nature took her hand and literally grabbed the Southwest and brought it to the table… and all we’re doing is serving food on that,” said Sosa.

TÍA CARMENThe renowned chef grew up in a Dominican-Italian household in Connecticut.

It was at the young age of 9 that Sosa was inspired by his Dominican tía (aunt) Carmen in the kitchen.

Sosa recalls to ABC15 that when his family visited his aunt and his siblings would run through the house to go outside, he instead would pull up a barstool and watch his aunt cook.

“When it was time to eat in this massive banquet, as everyone would start eating my tía wouldn’t even touch her plate until she heard the joy, the laughter, and just the harmony in [the] room,” said Sosa in an interview with ABC15. “In that moment I knew if this is what love is, you know kindness, joy, laughter through food & that’s the power of food… this is what I want to do.”

IF YOU GO

Copyright 2022 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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PHOENIX — The Phoenix Fire Department says multiple people were injured after a house fire Friday morning.

Crews were called to the area of Cave Creek Road and Sweetwater Avenue around 9 a.m. for a house fire.

Video from the scene showed flames billowing from a home in the area with the fire extending to multiple vehicles and another home.

Crews were reportedly met with dangerous conditions, including multiple surrounding structures on fire, downed power lines, and exploding propane tanks.

Fire crews say a man in his 30s suffered third-degree burns while attempting to get back into the burning home to save a lost animal.

“It’s gone…gone. Completely demolished,” said Rey Quinones when talking about his home.

Rey and his dad, Dave Quinones are heartbroken. While they were able to get out, four out of their five dogs didn’t make it.

“Those dogs were my everything, and now that I’ve lost them, I don’t know what to do,” said Rey in tears.

Rey says he and his dad were sleeping when their dogs started barking.

“My son said get out there’s a fire,” said Dave.

Dave, a former firefighter, immediately sprang into action.

“I grabbed the hose and started putting water on the fence to try to keep the flames from coming over,” Dave told ABC15.

Rey was just trying to get the dogs out, but he just couldn't do it.

“The heat was so overwhelming,” said Rey’s dad.

“What I’m wearing right now is what I have to my name,” said Rey.

“Was anything saved?” asked ABC15.

“Nothing, besides this little girl,” he answered.

Lucy was the only dog that made it out, and the barking is the reason they did, too.

“You owe them your life,” said ABC15 to Rey.

“And I tried to save theirs. I tried to save theirs, but I couldn’t,” he responded in tears.

While Dave is okay, Rey was taken to the hospital.

ABC15 was there when he walked out of the emergency room.

“Second and third-degree burns from my knuckles to my arm,” said Rey.

Another family living on the property also lost two dogs. A woman in that household was taken to the hospital and is in stable condition.

“I’m thankful that I have my dad, and our health, but like I said my dogs are everything to me. It’s just hard,” said Rey.

The father and son have started an online fundraiser to get them back on their feet.

They say they have a long road ahead but are confident the community will help them as they start over.

Hizain Camacho lives across the street and did his best to help when he saw the flames.

"I started to put water on it and knocked on the window,” said Camacho. "We were hosing down the home when we heard children.”

Camacho says he rushed behind the burning home and hopped a fence.

"I started breaking the glass [windows] and started hearing the screams,” added Camacho.

He then jumped inside the mobile home and saw the family trying to escape through the front door.

"And the fire was there. I said 'hey, come over here,” added Camacho. "They told me, 'Can you help me?' I said, 'Yes, I will. I'm here to help you. Let's go,’” added Camacho.

The American Red Cross told ABC15 they are helping the families, and that volunteers will come out to any fire to offer services, if they are called.

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.