Rising prices are putting financial stress on local consumers.

Higher-than-normal economic inflation rates in the past few months indicate that prices are rising and the U.S. dollar cannot keep up, in light of falling value abroad.

“I feel like my money is going to waste,” said Aaron Hickman, a senior criminal justice major.

Hickman said he has felt the effects of rising prices. Hickman said he buys his juice at Wal-Mart, but he noticed the price has gone up to $1.04 from 87 cents.

The national rate of inflation for February was 4.03 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a division of the U.S. Department of Labor. The average inflation rate over the past six months was 3.88 percent.

Economists disagree about the optimal rate of inflation, but the general consensus is somewhere between zero and three percent, according to Carl Campbell, NIU associate professor and assistant chair of the economics department.

Inflation measures the rise in price of a set of goods and services. There is some controversy about the immediate causes of inflation, but Campbell said inflation in the long run is caused by an increase in the supply of currency and it causes the relative value of money to decline.

“Gas prices can’t rise forever; food prices can’t rise forever, so, in the long run, inflation is tied to the supply of money,” Campbell said.

Prices for common items such as white bread and milk have risen sharply over the past year in Midwest urban areas. The increase is due in part to poor growing conditions, higher production costs and a rise in international demand. BLS data show the price of a loaf of white bread has risen 25 cents, a 23 percent increase. This rise in price has been relatively constant the past two years, with a 22 percent increase in 2006 and a 26 percent increase in 2007.

Meanwhile, the price of a gallon of 2 percent milk rose 82 cents since last year, a 30 percent increase. Regular unleaded gasoline rose in price to $3.02 from $2.27 in February of this year, a 33 percent increase. This is the largest percentage increase since 2003, when unleaded regular gasoline prices rose 48 percent.

According to the Inflation Calculator provided by BLS, $100 in 2000 would have the same buying power as $123 in 2008. This means you would need $23 more in 2008 to purchase the same amount of goods.

“Inflation [in DeKalb] is probably similar to what it is in the Chicago suburbs,” Campbell said, adding that inflation measures are based off the purchases of urban consumers, but probably still reflect the situation in DeKalb.

“As a college student, it’s always hard making ends meet. I might as well go to McDonald’s,” Hickman said.