Data through September 2026 · prices are three-month averages
Price increases since the start of 2025 add about — a year for a household at Kentucky’s median income (about $66,000), or — of its income.
Each item’s share of the total added yearly cost since the start of 2025 for a household at Kentucky’s median income (about $66,000), labeled with the added yearly cost in dollars. Hover for the item’s share of the basket and its price change. Percentages are shares of the household’s full added annual cost shown above. The last bar groups smaller costs, such as fees, alcohol, tobacco and life insurance. Vehicle insurance and repairs are priced with core inflation, since the South has no separate index for them.
How much more the same basket costs per year at July–September 2026 prices than at October–December 2024 prices, as a share of income. For the 20th percentile, the bar is the midpoint of a range: the minimum caps spending at income, and the maximum assumes the household spends as much as it reports, above its income. Hover for dollar amounts. Households at Kentucky’s 20th percentile of income ($26,201 in 2025) and median income ($66,447).
Income points and Kentucky prices. Kentucky’s 20th percentile of household income is $26,201 and its median $66,447 (American Community Survey 2025, tables B19080 and B19049). Kentucky prices are about 10% below the national average (BEA regional price parity of 90.2 in 2024), so these incomes buy what about $29,100 and $73,700 buy nationally, placing them in the national survey’s $15,000–$30,000 and $70,000–$100,000 budgets. Those budgets are then converted to Kentucky prices: rent at Kentucky’s rent-based housing price level (64.3), goods at 96.0, other services at 97.3, and everything else, including homeowner costs (property taxes, maintenance, repairs and insurance), income and debt payments, at 90.2. Homeowner costs use the overall level rather than the rent-based one, since owners’ out-of-pocket costs are unlikely to be as discounted as rents. Mortgage payments are shown with housing; because most are fixed-rate, they add nothing to the cost increase.
Households. National Consumer Expenditure Survey budgets by income, 2023–24 average, combining all six age tables (under 25 through 65 and older), weighted by households; under-25 households over $70,000 are counted in the $70,000–$100,000 range.
Spending capped at income. Households near the 20th percentile report spending well above their reported income, likely from savings, family help or unreported income. The dashboard does not assume any household spends more than its income: committed spending is capped at income, and the added cost is scaled down to match. That capped figure is the minimum; the maximum uses spending as reported. Headline figures for the 20th percentile are the midpoint of the two, a central estimate that assumes about half of the spending above reported income is real; the range is shown alongside. The median household spends less than its income, so its minimum, maximum and midpoint are the same.
Spending. Goods and services spending excludes retirement, pension and Social Security contributions, which BLS reports as one line, and charitable and other cash contributions, which are transfers rather than purchases whose prices rise. Debt payments (mortgage interest, mortgage principal and vehicle finance charges) count as committed spending but are not marked up for inflation, since most are fixed-rate. Credit card interest is added from the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances: the St. Louis Fed’s estimate of credit card balances as a share of monthly income for all households in each income decile (about 60% near the 20th percentile and 58% near the median), at the current rate on cards that charge interest. Rates are slightly lower than in late 2024 (22.4% versus 22.8%), so card interest adds nothing to the cost increase; it does count toward committed spending.
Prices since the start of 2025. To smooth month-to-month swings, especially in gasoline, prices compare three-month averages: October–December 2024 at the start and July–September 2026 at the end. Each household’s basket is priced item by item with South region price changes between those averages, then raised by the gap between East South Central and South region overall inflation (phone service, which has no regional index, uses the national CPI for telephone services); because monthly East South Central levels are not in the tables used, that gap is scaled from the two areas’ December 2024 to September 2026 changes. Before the price rise is applied, each item’s 2023–24 spending is restated at October–December 2024 prices, since prices for some items, gasoline especially, were lower then than their 2023–24 average.
Caveats: income at the low end is underreported; budgets are national spending patterns converted to Kentucky prices, not Kentucky households’ own spending; income growth is not modeled, since it varies widely within each group. Sources: BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys (age-by-income cross-tabs, 2023–24); BLS CPI-U, South region and East South Central, December 2023 to September 2026 (three-month averages for Oct–Dec 2024 and Jul–Sep 2026); BLS CPI-U telephone services, U.S. city average; BEA regional price parities for Kentucky, 2024; Census Bureau American Community Survey, 2025 (tables B19080 and B19049); Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, 2022, via the St. Louis Fed; Federal Reserve G.19 credit card interest rates; EIA retail gasoline prices, as a check.
Use of AI. This analysis was built with the help of Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic.