Which goods and services saw the largest price increases between 2024 and 2025?
Executive summary
Between 2024 and early/mid‑2025, food and shelter‑related costs and several services showed the largest year‑over‑year increases: eggs led food price moves (egg prices rose 36.8% in 2024 and remained a standout driver), meats/poultry/fish/eggs was the fastest food component in 2024 (up 4.2%) and beef/veal was forecast to rise sharply in 2025 (about 11.6% predicted) [1] [2]. Outside food, categories such as housing/shelter and some services (auto insurance, pet care, vehicle repairs) registered steep gains in 2024 and continued to weight inflation in 2025 [3] [4].
1. Food shocks dominated recent headline moves
Food categories were among the biggest year‑to‑year movers in the period covered: the BLS reported that the meats, poultry, fish and eggs component rose most between December 2023 and December 2024 (up 4.2%), and that egg prices alone rose 36.8% over that interval, making eggs a disproportionate driver of grocery inflation [1] [3]. USDA ERS reporting confirms eggs and beef as focal points: eggs were among the top rise-makers in 2024 and beef/veal faced continued supply pressure and a large forecasted jump into 2025 [5] [2].
2. Beef and veal — a concentrated, projected increase in 2025
USDA Economic Research Service analysis and outlooks highlighted tightening cattle supplies and strong consumer demand, producing a forecast that beef and veal retail prices would increase by roughly 11.6% in 2025 (prediction interval 9.5–13.8%) and had already been rising month to month into mid‑2025 [2]. That projection marks beef as one of the single goods expected to show the largest percentage rise from 2024 to 2025 in the ERS outlook [2].
3. Services and housing were major non‑food contributors
By weight in the CPI, shelter is the largest single component and was showing substantial increases: housing had the largest 12‑month percent change in December 2024, increasing 4.1%, meaning shelter continued to be a major driver of overall inflation into 2025 [3]. In addition, several services — auto insurance, pet care and vehicle repairs — recorded double‑digit or large single‑digit jumps in 2024, signaling that service‑sector price pressure was not confined to food [4] [6].
4. Energy and transportation — big cumulative moves but variable timing
Transportation prices grew rapidly in the 2020–24 window (transportation +34.4% 2020–24 reported by ERS), and energy/gasoline spikes remained important month‑to‑month contributors in 2025 releases (for example, gasoline was the largest factor in a monthly CPI rise in a September 2025 BLS release) [7] [8]. Sources show volatility: some months in 2025 saw gasoline and energy lift headline inflation materially even as annual averages moderated [8].
5. Tariffs and durable goods: a growing upside risk in 2025
Analyses flagged in the sources note that tariff changes early in 2025 began to feed through to durable goods prices — vehicles, electronics and furniture — and models estimated partial pass‑through that became more visible through mid‑2025, implying some imported/durable goods could show notable increases versus 2024 [9]. That points to a diversified set of upward pressures beyond food and housing.
6. Where the data disagree or leave gaps
Different sources emphasize different drivers: USDA/ERS focuses on specific food categories (beef, eggs), BLS emphasizes category‑level CPI moves (meats/poultry/fish/eggs; shelter), and news features highlight items consumers notice (auto insurance, pet care). No single source in the provided set offers a comprehensive ranked list of every good or service from 2024→2025; available sources do not mention a definitive, fully ranked table of largest price increases across all CPI items between 2024 and 2025 [1] [2] [4]. Analysts also differ on timing and causes — supply shocks (HPAI for eggs), demand and tariff policy — so attribution varies by source [5] [9].
7. Context for readers: why these increases matter
Large percentage moves in narrowly weighted items (eggs +36.8% in 2024) can grab headlines but may have smaller impact on overall CPI than broad‑based rises in heavily weighted categories like shelter. At the same time, concentrated shocks to staples (eggs, beef) hit household budgets and grocery spending patterns more visibly than aggregate statistics suggest [1] [7]. Forecasts (e.g., ERS beef projection) indicate where pocketbook pain could shift in 2025 even as headline inflation moderates [2].
Limitations: this summary relies only on the provided ERS, BLS and news reporting; it does not incorporate raw CPI tables or a single, exhaustive ranking for 2024→2025 because those were not included among the supplied documents [1] [2] [4].