Denver Channel: Consumers could see impact on clothing prices as cotton prices rise

Posted at 4:36 PM, Oct 12, 2021 and last updated 5:36 PM, Oct 12, 2021

Rodriguez said drought and severe weather are to blame for the supply shortage and rising prices.

“Cotton growing regions that were affected by hurricanes or natural disasters,” she explained.

“I think the whole supply chain is in kind of a disarray right now,” Kishore Kulkarni, an economics professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, said.

“The labor has been in short supply in recent days, which means higher wages. And higher wages mean higher cost of production,” Kulkarni said. “Our boats are not working as fast, it's all because of the labor shortage, and that is creating a constraint on the supply even more.”

Kulkarni said rising cotton prices would eventually be passed on to consumers.

“Time is hard to predict, but one can easily say in six months to a year you can see the reflections...in the market,” Kulkarni said