{"id":887990,"date":"2026-10-19T18:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T18:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/887990\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T18:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T18:48:10","slug":"inflation-in-the-northeast-region-is-rising-higher-than-the-national-average","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/887990\/","title":{"rendered":"Inflation in the Northeast region is rising higher than the national average"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhpr.org\/national\/2026-10-14\/inflation-sizzled-in-september-and-social-security-benefits-will-get-a-boost\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">recent report<\/a> from the U.S. Labor Department shows inflation has jumped by 3.7% since last year, but it\u2019s worse in the Northeast. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/regions\/mid-atlantic\/news-release\/consumerpriceindex_northeast.htm\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">data shows<\/a> prices rose 4.2% in the region over the last year, and prices especially rose for fuel and housing costs, including utilities.<\/p>\n<p>The data confirms the financial stress Granite Staters and other Northeast residents have been living with for the past year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt just seems like I&#8217;m getting further and further behind because everything just costs more,\u201d said Domenic Tutela, 41, a Nashua resident.<\/p>\n<p>Tutela said his rising condo fees, increased taxes and high grocery prices have put him in a tough position. He shares custody of his children with his ex-wife, so he pays for daily expenses in addition to child support and child care.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKids are really expensive to feed,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I like to give my kids the same kind of quality of life I had as a child growing up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That means he\u2019s also paying for their hobbies, like cheerleading programs. He makes good money in his marketing job, but his annual 3% raise hasn\u2019t kept up with the region\u2019s rising costs, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Tutela has now fallen behind on paying his bills. He staggers his payments to the point where he now knows how long he can not pay his cell phone bill before it\u2019s cut off. He also knows he can pay his condo\u2019s mortgage 29 days late without risking foreclosure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;m paying late payments on everything now, so it&#8217;s making it worse, but I need to do it because I don&#8217;t have the money\u201d to pay on time, Tutela said.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s also stopped paying his student loan payments altogether. He knows that could get his wages garnished by the government, but he said he has to focus now on his other bills that would have immediate consequences.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s one thing I&#8217;m ignoring right now until it becomes something I can&#8217;t ignore,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Tutela is one of the growing number of Granite Staters who have severely delinquent debt. Currently nearly <a href=\"https:\/\/mm.nh.gov\/files\/uploads\/nhes\/documents\/ec-0726-article.pdf\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">12% of New Hampshire residents<\/a> who haven\u2019t made monthly debt payments in at least 90 days.<\/p>\n<p>Tutela is seeing the consequences in his credit score. He says it was once in the 700s, but now it\u2019s in the 500s.<\/p>\n<p>Tutela is part of a national trend of falling credit scores. In 2025, the number of people with \u201cpoor\u201d credit scores (300 to 579) increased to almost 15%, according to data from the credit agency Experian.<\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"Image\" alt=\"\"  width=\"880\" height=\"533\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792435690_348_.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>New Hampshire Employment Security<\/p>\n<p>\/<\/p>\n<p>Greg David, assistant director of the state\u2019s Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau, said people with high credit scores have easier access to credit from banks and are generally paying off their loans on time. When scores dip to \u201cpoor,\u201d banks or credit cards are less willing to give a person a loan for fears they may not pay off the loans on time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is showing that some people are getting less [credit] than they might have a year prior and are struggling to pay it,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n<p>Tutela thinks that the way he\u2019ll get out of his situation is to sell his condo and become a renter. He\u2019s not expecting to be able to retire, but he knows there are lots of people in the same position.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody I talked to in my age bracket are more or less in the same position,\u201d Tutela said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A recent report from the U.S. Labor Department shows inflation has jumped by 3.7% since last year, but&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":887991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":["post-887990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}