The countdown to the first day of school is on in Philadelphia, and families shopping for supplies are confronting higher prices for many classroom essentials.
The price of a typical school supply list increased 7.7% over the past year, according to an analysis by economic policy nonprofit Groundwork Collaborative. Some individual items saw significantly larger increases, including lunch boxes, up 26.8%; notebooks, up 23%; and scissors, up 14%.
“Families are going to have to pay a lot more this year for school supplies than they did last year,” Lindsay Owens, president and CEO of Groundwork Collaborative, said…