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Gasoline drives price hikes
Businesses charging more for goods and services
Max Jarman
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 18, 2005 12:00 AM
Consumers, hammered this summer by soaring gas prices, are now being hit by higher prices for goods and services as companies move to recover their own rising fuel costs.
Businesses that have been absorbing the higher prices to remain competitive are breaking down and adding special fuel surcharges on everything from pizza and flower deliveries to plumbing and air-conditioner repairs.
"We held out for as long as we could," said Karen Qualtire of Qualtire Plumbing and Construction in Phoenix. The company boosted its service-call fee to $35 from $29.50. advertisement
Other industries including airlines and hotels are raising prices to recover some fuel-cost jumps.
"Businesses are discovering they can add these surcharges and get away with it," said John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute in Washington, D.C.
The price of regular gas rose to a record of $2.53 a gallon in Phoenix on Wednesday. Rising energy costs are being blamed for half of the 0.5 percent jump in the Consumer Price Index in July and for a 1 percent surge in wholesale prices, the biggest jump since October.
We have tacked on a "fuel surcharge" for our landscaping business, an average of $15 across the board. We used to be able to operate on $50 a week for gas, now our expenditures are WELL over $120 a WEEK
Dennis
