Ghosts. Goblins. Terrifying animatronic statues of Pennywise your neighbors put up in their front yard with no regard whatsoever to your clown-phobia (looking at you, dude five doors down).
There are more than a few things to give you goosebumps this Halloween - the most terrifying of which might be the price of…well, everything.
If you’re planning to fill a plastic cauldron with fun-sized candies to hand out to all the cute kiddos this year, you’ll be shelling out more than ever. Datasembly’s latest Grocery Price Index shows the national average price of candy and gum is up a chilling 13% over last year. Overall grocery prices are up 6.2%.
UCLA supply-chain expert Professor Christopher Tang told ABC News the hike in the price of sweets is up largely thanks to overall inflation.
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"The labor cost has gone up a lot because of inflation," Tang told the outlet. "The workers need to have a higher income so that they can survive."
"All the ingredients from wrapping paper to the basic ingredients like sugar, and also the cocoa beans that we have imported from Africa. So as a result, every single ingredient, element, and the wages are going up.”
On top of that, El Niño has hit the cocao bean industry hard, making chocolate more expensive to come by.
But the scary hike in candy prices isn’t keeping people from buying it. Reports show consumers are still purchasing bags of mini-Snickers bars, candy corn, and Milk Duds - they’re just forking over more for it, having gotten used to things costing more than they did before. The National Retail Federation says families in the U.S. will spent on average about $31.93 on candy, a marked increase from the $25.91 each household spent last year. Nationwide, the NRF predicts Americans will spend over $12 billion in Halloween candy in 2023.