American families are heading into the holiday shopping season with toy prices up 6.6% over the past year, according to the latest consumer inflation data cited by Reuters.
Toys sit at the intersection of two cost pressures: tariffs on imported goods and higher energy prices tied to the Iran war, which raise the cost of plastics and freight. Other petroleum-heavy products are also climbing.
Retailers have warned that promotions may be thinner than in recent years. Economists say lower-income households will feel the squeeze most, on top of higher grocery and gasoline bills that already dominate midterm polling.
Sources: Reuters via Devdiscourse. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
