Thursday, June 30, 2022

"Funeral industry struggle to hold rates as inflation soars"

From News.com.au, June 25:

The funeral industry is set for a shake-up as crematory operators and casket companies anticipate higher prices by the end of the year.

With the cost of everything on the rise as inflation pummels the US, the funeral industry, like all others, is encountering higher costs.

Data indicates the industry is trying to absorb some of the financial pain its customers are facing at a time when they need it most, Fox Business reports.

But insiders warn funeral homes may not be able to continue holding down rates much longer.

While the latest consumer price index from the US Labour Department shows inflation rose 8.6 per cent annually in May, the cost of funeral services only went up 2.7 per cent.

Compare that to the agency’s report from 2017 showing that the price of funerals had risen nearly twice the rate of inflation for all consumer items over the three decades prior....

....MUCH MORE

Meanwhile, at Funeral Director Daily, March 22:

Can you make inflation work for you

Possibly related from very early in the Covid era (January 27, 2020):
"Can the American casket monopoly be disrupted?" (HI; MATW)
What?

Why? Oh no reason, certainly not a ghoulish search for second-order effects and third-derivative pandemic trades....
*****
...One thing that always used to amuse was the fact that Hillenbrand was a major manufacturer of stretchers/gurneys and hospital beds, in addition to Batesville Casket.
They pretty much had your horizontality needs covered, from the time the ambulance pulled up until the hearse departed.
They split the businesses in 2008, Hillenbrand got the box biz, Hill-Rom (HRC) the beds. 
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