North Carolinians were also asked how the prices they are currently paying for other products compared to last year. Most residents said prices are much higher for meat (63%) and eggs (56%). Less than half of the poll respondents said they are paying a much higher price for fruits and vegetables (47%), milk (47%), natural gas (44%), bread (42%), electronics (39%), clothing (37%), toys (32%) and water (31%).

“People continue to be concerned about high gas prices, along with high inflation in general,” said Jerry Fox, associate professor of economics. “Inflationary expectations among buyers is likely to persist until actual inflation shows a steady and consistent decline. High inflation expectations, partly based on high gas prices, is a major factor causing overall consumer sentiment to be less optimistic.”

In the shorter term, more than one-third of North Carolinians said they are paying more for gas, compared to the previous month. About two out of five (45%) said gas affordability in their area was about the same as last month, and 16% said gas was more affordable than a month ago.

“According to this most recent HPU Poll, about one-third of poll respondents still feel that gas is more expensive,” said Brian McDonald, associate director of the HPU Poll. “In addition to paying more for gas than they did compared to a year ago, a majority of respondents feel that they are also paying more for foods like meat and eggs.”

NC residents – Gas Price Affordability (November 2022)

Compared to a month ago, is gas more affordable, about the same or more expensive in your area?

More affordable – 16%

About the same – 45%

More expensive – 34%

Unsure – 5%

The most recent HPU Poll of 1,015 respondents was fielded by the High Point University Survey Research Center on Nov. 10 through Nov. 17, as an online survey using a panel of respondents recruited and maintained by Dynata. Dynata sent invitations to its panel of N.C. respondents and the SRC collected responses on its Qualtrics platform. The SRC did all data analysis. The online sample is from a panel of respondents, and their participation does not adhere to usual assumptions associated with random selection. Therefore, it is not appropriate to assign a classic margin of sampling error for the results. In this case, the SRC provides a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points to account for a traditional 95% confidence interval for the estimates (plus or minus 3.1 percentage points) and a design effect of 1.1 (based on the weighting). The data is weighed toward population estimates for age, gender, race/ethnicity and education based on U.S. Census numbers for North Carolina. Factors such as question wording and other methodological choices in conducting survey research can introduce additional errors into the findings of opinion polls.

Further results and methodological details from the most recent survey and past surveys can be found at the Survey Research Center website. The materials online include past press releases as well as memos summarizing the findings (including approval ratings) for each poll since 2010.

The HPU Poll reports methodological details in accordance with the standards set out by AAPOR’s Transparency Initiative, and the HPU Survey Research Center is a Charter Member of the Initiative. See more information here.

You can follow the HPU Poll on Twitter here.

Dr. Martin Kifer, chair and associate professor of political science, serves as the director of the HPU Poll, and Brian McDonald is the associate director of the HPU Poll.