Urban Planning Chair Chris Tilly was featured in a Sacramento Bee article discussing the impact of inflation on the 2022 midterm elections. Prices have increased 5.4% in the last year, one of the steepest rises since 2008, and California now has the highest per-gallon gas price in the country. According to Tilly, higher prices at the pump hurt agriculture-heavy regions like the San Joaquin Valley more than any other areas of the state. “A lot of the agricultural valley workforces are relatively low-income, which means that they’re ill-equipped to deal with higher prices,” Tilly explained. Businesses struggling to handle the costs of inflation are more likely to raise the costs of their goods and less likely to increase the wages of their workers. “If I’m an agricultural worker, and possibly even an agricultural worker who’s dealing with supply chain problems in their own industry, then I’ve got a problem,” he said.