It's gotten a whole lot more expensive to die in America
The cost of burying a loved one in America has risen faster than virtually everything else over the last 30 years.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics just published a fascinating look at the cost of dying in the US...because it's Halloween. The chart below shows that the price index for funerals has risen almost twice as fast as consumer prices for all other items.
Producer prices for caskets rose 230% from December 1986 through September 2017, while prices for all commodities increased 95.1%. The data is not seasonally adjusted.
As casket costs surged, the rate of cremations surpassed burials in 2015 for a second straight year, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. Its data showed that the median cost of a funeral with viewing and burial in 2014 was $7,181, and $6078 for a funeral with viewing and cremation.
