Economic security

After a long lull, inflation rises from gas-pumps to retail stores

Behind a wall of stainless steel refrigerators, next to the fancy ranges, nearly 50 washers and dryers are displayed for sale at Warrendale Appliance in suburban Boston. Sales are brisk. And while prices on foreign-made washers have bumped up a bit because of a new tariff, management isn’t worried.

“It’s fifty bucks a washer,” says the owner, who did not want his name published. “It doesn’t affect business.”

But in downtown Boston, the problem for John Sadowski is that prices have been rising even more sharply for longer. Labor and other construction costs are up so much over the past three years that it's getting harder to make the numbers work on development projects. “At some point, something’s got to give,” says the commercial real estate consultant with Colliers International Group.

From real estate to gasoline, Amazon to Whirlpool, prices are on the rise. For some industries, such as construction, they’ve been rising for several years, long enough to become worrisome. For others, price hikes are just beginning.