Eating rice and beans instead of meat. Planning out meals a month in advance. Trying to raise more food in backyard gardens. Americans are changing the way they eat, shop and live to cope with a stretch of record food inflation.
For chrissake, can we stop this nonsense? Here is food inflation:
If you eat out a lot, food prices are still rising. But if you eat at home, food inflation is close to zero. Nobody has to plan meals a month in advance or grow food in a backyard garden.
Over the past year, wages are up about 3.8%, more than food at home and only a little less than food eaten in restaurants. Food inflation is just not a problem anymore.
WSJ saying that people "Eating rice and beans instead of meat" may actually encourage some people to do it, which will be good for the planet and for the people themselves.
i prefer oatmeal and beans; oatmeal has higher protein/lower carbs
Plus all that soluble fiber!
yup, which also helps with cholesterol
my ldl/hdl is currently 74/56 with no drugs so pretty happy with that
What sort of recipe uses oatmeal and beans? I like both, but never had them together. Sounds a little too woke.
pre-covid kroger chicken breasts and costco were basically the same price; now kroger is $3/lb while costco is $2.40/lb
pre-covid costco broccoli was $0.50/lb more expensive than kroger; now costco is $0.20 cheaper
sure seems like kroger's engaging in greedflation to me
Broccoli has gone up and down but it doesn't like wet winters, so it's still higher.
but the cost of broccoli at costco went way up during the pandemic then came back down somewhat
kroger's price went up then just stayed there
Yeah, Costco is more flexible in its supply chain than Kroger is.
The farms need to pay more for their labor, so they want to keep their price up.
And to be truthful, the wholesale price of broccoli went *down* during the pandemic, then up and over the next year.
There was alot more losses in shipping and picking than the year before.
But the wages are staying up. It's back to a normal price now, tho limited due to the winter weather, so...
Kroger, however, has been higher than other markets for about fifteen years. Probably due to their rather convoluted supply chains.
in 2020 kroger in my area was at $1.25/lb for crowns, now they're at $2.00/lb for a small crown with a 6 inch stalk attached (which they laughingly call crowns)
that's a 60% increase for a much lower quality product; not a subtle difference
costco over the same period went from $1.70, up to $2.50 at the peak, then back to $1.80
and these are florets with no stalks
so i still think kroger is an example of greedflation
this may be in preparation for the merger with albertsons; raise the prices now so no one will blame the merger on the price hike
Just because the year-over-year increase isn't as big as it was before, it's still an increase and people still haven't adjusted to (nor has their pay necessarily kept up with) the massive spike in 2022-23. Prices went up more than 10% during that spike and are still going up now. Of course people are mad about it. Wages definitely didn't spike 10%.
The WSJ data is two years old.
And yes, the situation today is better.
You can choose different foods.
From the WSJ article:
The article last week, "It’s Been 30 Years Since Food Ate Up This Much of Your Income," was based on 2022 data!
Can you imagine anyone arguing with a straight face that Americans are paying more for food today because of some blip in inflation 2 years ago?
It's worse than journalistic malpractice. It's GOP propaganda. There is more screwed up at the WSJ than just the editorial page.
And for anyone complaining that Kevin's chart shows inflation, but prices are still high, high, high, here's a chart on food prices:
https://x.com/ErrataRob/status/1761854911145283818?s=20
The big hike during 2022 in grocery prices/inflation was eggs, doubling over the course of a year. Today, not only has egg inflation come down, egg prices have fell dramatically as well.
And why eggs? Bird flu.
Joe Biden had nothing to do with it.
Doesn't that show most items 20% higher than 2019?
"Can you imagine anyone arguing with a straight face that Americans are paying more for food today because of some blip in inflation 2 years ago?"
Seems obviously true to me. The prices went up and didn't come back down so we are still paying more for food today.
The the profits for grocery store chains? Or food manufacturers? Up, down or sideways?
No one is responding to food prices by raising a backyard garden.
Seriously, its virtually impossible to get into a situation where food from a backyard garden is cheaper than earning a wage and buying it at a store.
Which is always the joke among gardeners, that the delicious tomato or zucchini from your garden costs more than filet mignon by the time you factor in the hours of effort.
Its the same with handmade clothing or anything else which has been industrialized, the benefits of mass production make it the cheapest option.
The cost of fast food isn't the food, its the wages of the person cooking it and the fixed cost of the restaurant.
Decent locally-grown tomatoes in season in my area still cost more than the ones I raise at home. And when it's a pleasant hobby, as opposed to back-breaking work, I can discount the hours I spend. Or I suppose I could hire undocumented workers the way the agribiz folks do...
For one starting flat, before the cost of water, is three pounds of heirloom tomatoes... and it just goes up from there.
It's as if the WSJ has taken a turn against the whole idea of business. The cost benefit of growing your own tomatoes is just the first in a series. Looking forward to future cost-cutting tips:
-Knitting your own sweaters
-Assembling your own SUV
-Building your own 3-bedrrom house
Think of the ways you can beat the high cost of living.
... 3d-printing your guns
First of all I agree with Joseph Harbin though I would be more profane - the Wall Street Journal is full of shit. Second, there is almost certainly some profiteering going on but I believe the profit margin for grocery stars, even the big chains, is generally surprisingly small. I live in greater Boston where the Market Basket chain is everywhere and they are consistently cheaper than everyone else so I am sympathetic to grocery store owners. Check out the whole Market Basket story from 10 years ago - the story of the two Arthurs:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/25/market-basket-family-feud-grocery-massachusetts
That chart is a winner. Simple and clear, almost boring, but it's worth getting it out here for people to see.
It's not food inflation any more; that's leveled off. The higher food prices, though, are still with us. The home index (after four years of dead flat '15-'19), went from about 250 to 300 in two years. That surge was over, a year ago, but it still stings when I look at food ads or shop for it. I'm still remembering those four nice years.
By golly--you should never have to pay more then $2 for gallon of gas, a jug of milk or a pound of ground beef!!! That's my God given right as an American!!!
I'll believe food is expensive when people eat more than they throw away.
+1
Along the same "good news" line, the FTC has filed suit to block the Kroger/Albertson's merger. Can you imagine? Actually enforcing anti-trust laws?
Food inflation might not be a problem but O.M.G the whining over the price of fast food now that wage hikes have kicked in due to higher minimum wages.
The world is literally coming to an end on NextDoor and it's all the fault of damn liberals giving everything away to the undeserving.
If people are growing their own food, it means WFH's positive effects are extensive, yeah? Imagine how pissed off Musk must be, if the planet gets greener and people are happier; no incentive to become a multiplanetary species when Earth is the best place to live.
Dude, no amount of working from home will change the heat-death of the Earth or the chance or a rock hitting the planet.
Kevin - You're misreading the chart. Yes, in the past 12 months, inflation for food purchased at home has been fairly low. But it's the area **under the curve** that shows the **cumulative** increase during the period. So while the **increase** in food prices has **slowed**, it certainly hasn't reversed the very large price increases in 2022. So yes, in the last 12 months, wage increases on average are higher how much food prices increased in those 12 months - but since households had lost a lot of ground in 2022, people aren't going to feel like they're better off now, particularly compared to (say) three or four years ago.
So, any ire to send CNN’s way?
Or the FTC’s I suppose…
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/02/27/investing/takeaways-supermarket-merger-ftc/index.html
I would never have expected you to be bad at interpreting data.
Current inflation rate applies to current increases in the existing prices. I don't know if you noticed, but for some months the inflation rate was far beyond wage increases. Those prices never came down. So food inflation is currently 1 ish % but that is on top of a high base price that rocketed up in less than a year.
You know how you're supposed to always take inflation into effect? Here, that means modest food inflation on top of a radically inflated base. It looks manageable only if you cherry pick your starting point.
No, since for awhile, wage increases were above inflation...
And what happened in 2022? A war broke out between two major agricultural producers in the world which disrupted the markets and supply chains depended upon them. You're already trying to get things back to normal from the pandemic like supply chain and the supply of labor and other variables like bird flu and the weather and then this happens.
Donald Trump may not be very book-smart about geopolitics (not at all) but he's intelligent enough to know that ending the war between Russia-Ukraine will stop the sanctions and thus a flood of both grains and oils will hit the markets sending prices for gas and food crashing because market prices today are globally set. That's why he wants to see an end to the war even if it means forcing Ukraine to give up territory.
In order to get prices back down to 2019 levels would have required interest rates well over 10 percent. There were some economists who wanted to see happen. The Fed, backed by the Biden Administration said no, that wasn't going to happen. They were not going to make the same mistake Jimmy Carter did by allowing the Fed to set rates at 22 percent and cause a massive recession and unemployment in the wake of the pandemic just to crash prices and then watch the Reagan Administration take all the credit. That was smart because the economy didn't go through those convulsions. They've chosen other means like anti-trust or expanded out exports for example to keep prices in check. Bottom line is the rate of inflation is down from 9.1 percent in 2022 to 3.6 percent now. Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan could have only dreamed out reducing inflation without brining on a rise in unemployment. Biden has accomplished this and should be given the credit for it regardless of people's nostalgia kicks.
That thing you're worried about? It's not a big deal to me, Kevin Drum.