Inflation pains persist in Denver — with restaurant price inflation the highest in the nation

While much of the country sees signs of cooling inflation, price pressures from gas to groceries remain high in Denver.

Driving the news: The year-over-year inflation rate around the metro was 4.7% in July — the second-highest rate in the country, next to Tampa, Florida — albeit a slight drop from 5.1% in May, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.

• Blame higher energy and housing costs.
• Between May and July, household energy and utility prices jumped by 7.5%, marking the largest two-month increase in over a year, according to a new report from the conservative-leaning Common Sense Institute.

BFD: Colorado currently outranks every other state for restaurant price inflation, a new USA Today analysis of federal data shows.

• Costs have soared 24% since last November, meaning Coloradans spend an average of $112 every two weeks on eating out.

What they're saying: Restaurants are facing similar struggles, like "increased food pricing, increased labor pricing, fuels going up, packaging," Sonia Riggs, CEO of the Colorado Restaurant Association, told KUNC.

• "Restaurant operators have no choice but to pass their increased costs onto the customers" through higher menu prices and service fees, Riggs said.

The intrigue: Riggs suspects rising minimum wage and living costs could be driving up Colorado's high restaurant prices.

The big picture: The average Colorado household has spent $19,295 more on living expenses since 2020 due to inflation, CSI estimates.

The bottom line: The broad-based easing of price pressures nationwide offers an optimistic outlook that inflation will cool along with the weather as 2023 proceeds, Axios' Neil Irwin and Courtenay Brown write.

• But further improvement in the inflation picture isn't a certainty.