Seattle inflation is back near 5% — and running hotter than the nation

economy
prices
Seattle-area consumer prices rose 4.9% over the year through April, the fastest since 2022 and a point above the U.S. rate. The local number has accelerated in every reading since last June.
Published

July 11, 2026

Two lines, 12-month percent change in CPI-U for the Seattle area and the United States, 1999 to 2026. Both series mostly move between 0 and 4 percent, dip below zero around 2009, then spike together in 2021-22 — Seattle peaking at 10.1 percent and the US at 9.1 percent in June 2022. Both fall back toward 2-3 percent by 2024-25, then turn up again through 2026, ending at 4.9 percent for Seattle and 4.2 percent for the US. Gray bands mark Washington downturns.

Consumer prices in the Seattle area rose 4.9% over the year through April — the fastest local inflation since November 2022, and the fifth straight reading to come in hotter than the last. The acceleration has been remarkably steady: 2.7% last June, 2.8% in August, 3.1% in December, 3.9% in February, 4.9% now. The U.S. rate is on the same escalator a step behind — 4.2% through May, up from 2.4% as recently as February.

Two things are true at once on this chart. First, the 2026 upturn is a national story with an energy signature — gasoline at record nominal prices does a lot of the lifting, just as it did in 2008 and 2022. Second, Seattle runs hot: the local line has sat above the national one for most of the past decade, it peaked higher in 2022 (10.1% vs 9.1%), and the current gap is about a point. Housing costs are the usual suspect in that persistent premium.

Reading notes, because this series has quirks. BLS surveys Seattle prices bimonthly — even months only — so the local line has half the resolution of the national one, and one recent point is simply missing (October 2025, a casualty of the federal shutdown). Both series are not seasonally adjusted, which is why we compare each month to the same month a year earlier rather than to the month before. And a city CPI measures price change within Seattle, not whether Seattle is cheaper or dearer than elsewhere — it answers “how fast,” never “how much.”

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U, all items, not seasonally adjusted — Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue (FRED CUURA423SA0) and U.S. city average (FRED CPIAUCNS). The June reading for both series lands with the CPI release in mid-July; this chart refreshes on the next daily build.