That 99-cent slice of pizza will now cost you $1.50

As you may have recently noticed, the price of 99-cent pizza has crept up to $1.50 at neighborhood slice joints... with $1.50 signage covering the 99 cents pricing ...

This was an expected increase ... with media reports dating back to the late fall warning of an uptick thanks to inflationary food costs, the global supply-chain crisis and national labor shortage. Per the Times on Dec. 22: "The $1 Pizza Slice Becomes Inflation's Latest Victim." 

Abdul Muhammad, owner of 99 Cent Fresh Pizza, the eight-location chain in Manhattan, told The Guardian last December that the continued rise in costs may force him to raise his slice prices for the first time since opening in 2001.

"I have to think about it because my customers, many of them unemployed and struggling to make rent, can't afford to pay more," he said. 

Of course, the price of a slice has gone up across the board. 

As Bloomberg reported earlier this month:

The "pizza principle," a mainstay of New York economics for more than four decades, states that a slice of cheese pizza will always be the same price as a subway ride. 

The rule has largely held true since first conjectured in the New York Times in 1980, with any increase in pizza prices tending to predict a matching hike in public-transit fares. 

Not anymore. Prices for plain slices are soaring above $3 throughout the city along with commodity and labor costs. With the Metropolitan Transportation Authority freezing fares at $2.75, the gap between the price of riding downtown and satisfying late-night hunger pangs is growing quickly.