DALLAS — Since the 1970s, Americans have come to understand that global shocks such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can send gasoline prices spiking for a time, but a dozen eggs aren’t supposed to be so expensive.

Eggs were one of the biggest price gainers in the grocery shopping cart in 2022, but the kitchen staple has its own reason: Outbreaks of avian flu are taking out laying hens, more than 40 million of them.

A dozen eggs cost an average of $3.59 in November, as measured by the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index. That’s twice the average price of $1.80 a year ago. Some egg prices are over $5 a dozen.

Inflation in Dallas-Fort Worth has been rising faster than the U.S. average all year, and it, too, has a special phenomenon driving it.

Weighted in household budgets much higher than eggs is the big jump in rents and costs of owning a home.

D-FW housing costs — including electricity — are 10.2% above a year ago, the highest annual increase since October 1981. Included is an 11.8% year-over-year increase in rent, the highest since April 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most recent inflation breakdown for the Dallas area.

A big break came at the pump. Dallas-area gasoline prices for the first time in two years are now lower than a year ago.

That’s just three things we spend money on, and each had little to do with the other. Overall, consumer prices closed out the year 8.4% higher in D-FW than they were a year ago, ranking among the steepest increases seen in major U.S. metros.

So what’s the outlook for inflation in 2023?

The money is on inflation coming down but slowly. The Commerce Department said prices rose 5.5% in November from a year earlier, down from a revised 6.1% increase in October. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation was up 4.7% over the previous year.

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