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AUSTINTOWN -- The state director for Americans for Prosperity-Ohio, a conservative political organization, said despite a reduction in national inflation, people are still having financial struggles.
"What we're finding when we're talking to folks is they're still feeling the pain at the pump; they're still feeling the pain in the grocery store," said Donovan O'Neil, AFP-Ohio's state director, during a Wednesday visit in Austintown. It was at Rulli Bros. grocery store and then later at Barry Dyngles restaurant.
The organization handed out $47 gift cards to represent the 4.7 percent increase in the consumer price index from June 2022 to last month.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said the CPI rose 3 percent over the past 12 months and was the smallest 12-month increase since March 2021. The "all items less food and energy index rose 4.8 over the last 12 months," the bureau stated.
AFP-Ohio is on a statewide "Prosperity is Possible" bus tour to bring attention to economic issues facing Ohioans including jobs, inflation and energy production.
Some financial struggles are "attributable to the rising energy costs which are driving the costs of everything in the country," O'Neil said.
The national inflation rate in June was 2.97 percent, the lowest its been since March 2021.
AFP's last public visit in the Mahoning Valley was July 6, 2022, when it paid to reduce the cost of unleaded gasoline at Morgan Oil in Lowellville from $4.60 per gallon to $2.38. The latter was the national average price for a gallon of gas when President Joe Biden, a Democrat, took office on Jan. 20, 2021.
The price of a gallon of unleaded gas at Morgan Oil on Wednesday was $3.09, which is closer to the cost when Biden took office than when AFP paid for it a year ago.
Reached to comment Wednesday, Mahoning County Democratic Party Chairman Chris Anderson said, "It's astonishing to me that a group bankrolled by some of the richest people in the world would have the audacity to pretend they care about the very real pinches that Americans are facing at grocery stores and the gas pump because they measure the success of the economy by the stock market and not how we all feel."
O'Neil said federal government spending and the lack of energy production in the United States are "driving up energy costs."
The federal government should be focusing on lowering regulations to reduce the cost of energy, he said.
Biden wants to continue spending trillions of dollars to grow the economy while AFP wants to balance the federal budget, O'Neil said.
At the Rulli Bros. event, Debbie and George Curl of Columbiana said they've had to make cutbacks in their purchases because of costs. The two wore campaign shirts in support of state Sen. Michael Rulli, R-Salem, and the director of operations for his family grocery business.
"Some items have doubled in cost so we don't buy them," Debbie Curl said.
Her husband added: "Everything Biden has done has caused this problem."
Debbie said she hasn't decided who she'll vote for next year for president, but it will be "anybody but Biden."
She urged people to "get more involved and not sit on the couch watching television. We need to be out in the community talking to your neighbors to get better informed."