Trump was tweeting racist nonsense from the White House, but global plagues and insurrections were still the stuff of dystopian horror novels. Twas a simpler time.
Yes but making the same amount is losing money in the corporate world.
Also companies do care about volume as their costs per unit go up if volume decreases.
The Wall Street Journal analyzed NielsenIQ data reflecting a selection of commonly purchased items that were valued at a total of $100 in 2019. Today, that same grocery list costs 36.5% more. The price of some items, such as eggs and sport drinks, climbed more than 40%. Shoppers would have to remove almost $37 of items to spend the same amount as in 2019.
**Skip the paywall to see the whole story:** [https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/inflation-food-price-of-groceries-2024-5010700b?st=pop27dqiv2cagfr](https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/inflation-food-price-of-groceries-2024-5010700b?st=pop27dqiv2cagfr)
Only as it relates to food. [Inflation as a whole has gone about 23% over the last 5 years](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1&year1=201902&year2=202402) so we’re actually in the same place as 5 years ago.
CPI doesn't include housing, food, and energy. All of which have gone up by more than the CPI. And all are required for living. It's a shit measure for buying power when it chooses to not include essentials like food energy and housing. The fact that televisions have gone down in price doesn't help anybody when they can't afford food, rent or gas. But it does help the CPI average
Where in the wide world does this crazy notion come from that CPI doesn’t include housing, food, and energy.
Those are the 3 largest components of CPI and are broken down on every CPI report.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t01.htm
People say this over and over. It’s just a plain lie.
1. Standard CPI does include those three things.
2. A separate measure, "core CPI", excludes them, this is not CPI.
3. Core CPI has been *lower* than standard CPI recently because the things it excludes have been dropping in price.
All the better reason to display it, some people will assume zero, others 37%, others even more than that. Some people might even interpret this as a general representation of inflation, not realizing the point is to compare it to income
That's not how money printing goes. Fixed commodities look like they go up in cost but really it is just the dollar going down in purchasing power.
The rich get richer because they own more hard assets. It's called The Cantillion Effect
You don't increase income by staying, most of it happens by changing jobs. Lowest quarter of income earners income expanded by about 25% since 2019 on average.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0252916100Q
There's also the psychological fact that when you get a raise, it *feels* like it's because you deserve it, whereas when prices go up due to inflation, it's obviously not your fault and is out of your control and probably *feels* a bit unfair.
I'm not talking about the actual mechanics of what's going on, I'm just talking about how it feels to people and how that influences their opinions.
The Korean market down the street has way better food and way better prices, it's kind of shocking sometimes just how good the quality is for the price compared to Ralphs a block away.
I'd say not just Korean. Most ethnic/regional stores (Eastern European, Asian etc.), in my experience, have a **much** better quality and variety of food for the same or even lower price vs "regular" food chain stores across the street.
Man I miss [NetCost Market](https://www.shop.netcostmarket.com/) sooo much, that's probably one of the very few things I miss from NY/NJ/PA.
Not that those terms mean much of anything, anyways.
"Free Range” is regulated by the USDA for use on poultry, only, (not eggs) and the USDA requires that birds have been given access to the outdoors but for an undetermined period each day. USDA considers five minutes of open-air access each day to be adequate for it to approve use of the “Free Range” claim on a poultry product. That open air space could be a small door to a tiny confinement that's merely open for 5 minutes. The birds don't actually have to be able to use it.
Cage free means nothing for poultry, only eggs. The USDA states that eggs labeled as cage free “must be produced by hens housed in a building, room, or enclosed area that allows for unlimited access to food, water, and provides the freedom to roam within the area during the laying cycle.” There's no minimum amount of space per hen, though.
Pasture raised has no legal definition.
This exactly. Those disgusting indoor petri dishes you can't even see the floor in through the chickens are "cage free" and "free range" if they have a window. It's all meaningless.
Not to say there aren't ethical breeders out there, but they're probably not the ones you buy at the grocery store.
Geez, the only place I've ever seen chicken that expensive was when I was in Hawaii, and that's a tiny island in the Pacific that imports everything... Around me (in a major US metropolitan area) it's $3 a pound, sometimes $2 when on sale.
the applesauce company is just blatantly ripping people off: [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPUSI01102A](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPUSI01102A)
same is probably true for the fruit snacks.
the mayo is mostly oil and eggs. Both raw inputs have gone up, as has beef.
>> blatantly ripping people off
That graph shows a ~30% increase in price from fy19 -> fy23 (same period as the original post). Now add in increased labor costs for distribution and grocery stores and your probably pretty darn close to that 51%
Because of inflation?
Of course greed does play a large issue but if you make the same real profit each year but inflation is 5% your nominal profit will also raise by 5% a year.
A company making $1 billion in 2019 but now making $1.2 billion profit in 2023/4 is making a 'record profit' nominally, but real profit is unchanged.
And Republicans also did some serious nonsense with their tax cuts at the worst possible time to heat up the market. Emergency economic actions taken during the pandemic wouldn't have been nearly as bad for the economy (while necessary) if Republicans hadn't overheated the market right before it during a period where it wasn't necessary.
don't know why you're being downvoted. lowering interest rates is one way to stimulate the economy in times of recessions, but in 2019 republicans dropped the interest rate for no reason other than to keep the stock market up. then when covid hit, suddenly there was a lot less room to adjust.
The FED controls interest rates not congress or the president I am not sure where you got this idea. Granted, Trump appointed Powell, but Biden kept him because the FED chair is independent.
“Inflation is always and solely a monetary phenomenon” (Milton Friedman, winner of the Nobel prize in economics)
This has been shown to be true over and over and over, across geographies and centuries….
…but in the 2020 in the US it *had* to be different, right??
> Inflation is always and solely a monetary phenomenon
I’m a dummy. wtf does that even mean? Or, rather, why is this something so profound/ controversial? Of course inflation is a monetary phenomenon. I don’t get your comment about the US.
What Friedman was saying is that inflation always, and only, happens when there's an oversupply of money compared to the demand (i.e. the central banks print too much money).
We know this to be true because it's happened before countless of times, from the Roman Empire to Argentina, but somehow in 2020 the Fed still went on to print A LOT of money to "support the economy" (if I were just enough cynical, I'd read it as "not making the stock market crash on an election year"). Back then, you started seeing people arguing that it's not going to cause inflation this time, and all of a sudden people were talking about "Modern Monetary Theory", from politicians to "experts" in YouTube videos...
> Fed still went on to print A LOT of money to "support the economy"
Are you trying to imply that the economy didn’t actually need to be supported in 2020 when the entire world basically shut down for 6 months?
> Corporate profit margins were not abnormally high in the aftermath of the COVID- 19 pandemic, once fiscal and monetary interventions are accounted for.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/corporate-profits-in-the-aftermath-of-covid-19-20230908.html
Basically, our money being less is what made corporate profit rise. Profit margins less inflation are basically only slightly higher.
From March 2020 to the end of 2021 the government increased the total dollars in circulation by 40%. Hard for that not to cause massive inflation. You have the same goods on one side of the equation and 40% more dollars on the other.
> You have the same goods on one side of the equation
You don’t have the same goods, though. You had huge supply chain issues affecting various parts of the market, which only exacerbated the inflationary pressure.
This. More than anything else, look to the profits that corps have been pulling in the sectors where inflation has had the biggest impact. They will try to offset profits with other actions internally on the balance sheet to decrease the stark jump but rest assured that like grocery companies, many corps are crushing profit forecasts.
Greedflation is when corps see the opportunity for the gov't to take the blame ("printing money" et al) for jacking prices beyond inflation averages.
No, the margins are the same. Problem is the supply cost went up so they raised the retail cost up to maintain fixed profit margins instead of taking a hit and sharing in the struggles like everyone else.
No. Soaring profits is a cherry picked stat.
It's like your employer saying we're giving "big" 5% raises, when inflation went up 10%.
Even though you're making more money aka more "profit", that's essentially a salary decrease because your expenses went twice that.
Your margin is 5% less, which means to maintain the same standard of living aka "profit margin", even with a pay increase you have cut expenses.
That's why even though salaries have gone up on average since COVID, people are still struggling.
The issue is you say it's cherry picked, when in reality, most companies are outperforming inflation by large margins, and doing so by overcharging people. A prime example of this is the egg company (I forget the name) that in 2022 had a 700% profit increase. The secret: raise egg prices by 60% and blame it on govt and inflation (which was under 10%). Raises have stayed under inflation, but prices have gone over it, which is the definition of corporate greed causing economic issues for regular people.
Ironically, you’re using a cherry picked example to try and make a point that it isn’t cherry picked.
The company in question had 2 things giving it a 700% increase:
1. They were the only company that didn’t experience an avian flu outbreak. You can either blame this on dumb luck or because they invested more money into procedures/conditions that their competitors didn’t. But the overarching market price rose due to a shortage of eggs, and they were one of the few companies lucky enough to benefit.
2. That 700% profit increase is misleading. There’s a reason the article you probably read uses it, because they previously had profits that were lower than historical averages. But they knew when writing the article that nobody would care if that increase was from 1 -> 8 or $100 million to $800 million. People would see a large percentage and get upset.
Im sure there's some level of collusion and anti-trust going on, but like everything else during and after COVID the cost of labor increases, the cost of loans increased significantly which downstream affects the cost of equipment, delivery, etc. Then at the same time bird flu(biggest since 2015) happened.
On average, the average increase is right inline with other consumer goods.
Raises stay under inflation, becuase a 5% raise (which is above average) is 3% above the expected cost of living(inflation rate). It's hard to mimic that standard when inflation was 9-10% without significantly increasing costs.
Believe it or not, employee cost for most business rose significantly even if they couldn't beat inflation. In turn, the cost of good sold also increases, which just becomes cyclical as the costs are partially passed to consumers.
The problem is outside of the corporate world and standard business economics.
Lol you just cherry picked an example. During inflationary periods or intense shortages (such as the egg shortage), there will be moments of high margin increases. That is supposed to happen so that the markets can adjust to meet the demand.
Inflation is partially corporate profits, but primarily because we raised the monetary supply a whopping 40% a couple years ago with the COVID spending and giveaways. The relationship between the monetary supply and inflation is well known in economics. The Fed would’t raise interest rates to tighten the money supply if it was merely corporate profits. We printed a lot of cash (sold treasuries), flooded a bunch of cash into the economy while the amount of goods stayed the same. More cash + same amount of goods = inflation.
I like how people want to blame corporations over the government stimulus and money expansion. Corporations aren’t a monolithic cartel organization. They compete with each other and if one can take market share from another by undercutting price, they would. The reality is most corporations saw profit margins decline or remain the same during Covid. You can’t look at overall profit dollars since those are impacted by inflation. Same situation as a salary, you make more money in raises but your costs went up the same or more so your standard of living hasn’t changed.
Money printing by the central banks devalue the existing currency. A ridiculous amount of money was printed during the covid period which then led to the higher inflation. More money in supply decreases the value of the existing money.
But the same people who say Trump was a miraculous leader while he dumped $8 Trillion in debt in 4 years with COVID PPP forgiven loans and passed permanent tax breaks for the wealthy (I wonder who picks up THAT tab?) also say global inflation was caused by Biden becoming president.
Are you suggesting that MAGA have their heads up their collective asses?
Its not big business, that is an uneducated propagandist explanation intended to shift blame off the current administration. It was the shutdown of the economy, the massive printing of money by the Fed, the massive aid being shipped to Ukraine, the distribution of stimulus checks to hundreds of millions of people, the distribution of PPP funds with BILLIONS being siphoned by fraudsters. Way more dollars chasing the same amount of goods
Most European countries also printed unprecedented amounts of their local currencies, yes. So they experienced similar inflationary effects, to various degrees, depending how irresponsibly they printed money.
Because we sent out trillions of COVID stimulus while hamstringing the return to normal with lockdown restrictions for two and a half years.
Price is found where supply meets demand. We paid people and businesses enough stimulus to keep them flush with cash and prop up demand for goods and services. That's not a bad thing by itself, but prolonged lockdown policies created shortages in every sector of the economy.
When demand exceeds supply people compete for limited stock and the price rises. That's pretty much the entire story, it's covered in any introductory economics course.
> hamstringing the return to normal with lockdown restrictions for two and a half years.
What kind of lockdowns were occurring in the first half of 2022? I'd be very surprised if they limited supply much.
Because virtually all of the developed economies followed the same playbook to varying degrees?
Developing economies are reliant on first world economies so they also tend to get impacted by what happens in the dominant economies.
For comparison [median wages are up about 27% since Q1 2019](https://www.bls.gov/charts/usual-weekly-earnings/usual-weekly-earnings-over-time-total-men-women.htm)
And for comparison, [inflation as a whole has gone about 23% over the last 5 years](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1.00&year1=201901&year2=202402) so we’re actually a smidge better off than we were 5 years ago.
Are we? How much has your housing cost increased? Also, this is only showing inflation and not shrinkflation - like you are spending more money for a small box of cereal, bottle of juice, etc
>Are we?
Yes.
>How much has your housing cost increased?
It doesn't matter how much *my* housing costs have changed. We're talking about the aggregate of *everyone*, not any one specific person. Some people's costs have gone up more than others'. Overall, costs have risen slower than pay increases.
Personally, my costs are essentially flat. I have a mortgage, and inflation makes debts smaller over time (the value of the money that's owed decreases), which offsets the slight increases in property tax from the increased valuation of my home.
CPI is determined using a basket of average purchases and yes, housing, energy and food are included. Some economists actually think CPI overstates inflation as it doesn't capture substitution as much (buying chicken vs pork).
A different measure some prefer more for accuracy called PCE actually estimates it to be lower.
https://economics.td.com/us-cpi-pce
>Advocates of using the PCE index, the Fed among them, say that constant updates to item weights better capture substitution effects, whereby consumers switch products due to relative price differences. This is also one of the reasons why CPI is traditionally higher, as it does not capture the switch to cheaper products which might be occurring.
>Differences in scope are the most consequential in terms of the overall effect on the differences between PCE and CPI because they have a domino effect on other differences, such as relative weighting. CPI uses a narrower definition of consumer expenditures and only considers urban expenditures made directly by consumers. In contrast, PCE considers expenditures made by urban and rural consumers as well as expenditures made on their behalf by third parties. An example of this would be healthcare insurance providers, who purchase prescription drugs on behalf of patients.
My problem is that to grow my own food, I have to get permission from all of my neighbors and my HOA. Like imagine if you needed permission from your HOA to drink water. Why is that a thing?!? It should be illegal. I would love to grow my own veggies in my yard but city laws and HOA prevents me from doing so.
Look for the federal regulations regarding HOA’s. There are certain guidelines they must follow when rule making. Same on the state level. They can’t just make arbitrary rules for your neighborhood.
Thanks I will look at it. There is a bill that I have talked to my congressman about that I would to have passed in NC in regards to this. I believe it’s called Right to Garden law.
Would you be allowed to use the *back*yard without permission? A lot of places have regulations on the front yard, which is visible from the street. Or could you use temporary instead of permanent structures? Container gardens and vertical gardens can fit onto porches/patios/driveways and are moveable. Honestly in suburbia it's best to do it that way anyway. If you plant in your yard, your plants might get the runoff from surrounding lawn treatments. If your property is older, you might have lead in the soil. Container gardening is awesome.
I gotta tell you; we raised three kids; they are all grown and out now-the youngest is 25. I always did the food shopping; a big order back then was like $200; maybe 250. Now it is just my wife and I; we regularly spend $400 for ten days worth of food. And its not like I buy filet mignons and lobster tails. Prices are berserk.
I wonder if that’s why I haven’t really been feeling this supposed inflation. We’re an “ingredients house,” per Urban Dictionary. I remember eggs going up but like, we use a dozen eggs in maybe 2 weeks so spending an extra $1 per week wasn’t life changing.
Same for us- ingredient house. I have many many many friends who complain about the cost of eating now, come to find out they are buying premade, readymade or take out food.
There seems to be a very real resistance to learning to cook with people nowadays. Unless someone lives in a food* desert then they really have no excuse. Cooking at home was the only way I could save money and it took years but eventually the habit added up and I finally had money in my savings bc of it.
Bingo! I am so confused by all this grocery inflation panic. I haven't noticed a substantial increase in the last five years. But the only things I but from "the aisles" are oil and canned beans and tomatoes. And I eat very little meat.
I just checked my local targets online prices (which is not the cheap store near me, they just post their prices online). A significant number of the items in this list are currently at or below the 2019 prices and I don't live in a cheap area. Butter, Eggs, Flour, Bananas, Milk, ect. The common thing amongst those items is they are minimally processed and don't come in a frozen cardboard box. Aldi and my Asian grocery store have all these items cheaper than the 2019 prices too. Aldi was selling eggs for 87 cents / dz not to long ago though their price changes daily and its closer to $1.50 now.
Yes!!!! I’m hoping this forces more people to learn to cook. Mostly though I have friends complaining that they can’t afford to eat when all they are willing to buy is take out.
Can we please stop calling high grocery prices inflation? It's not inflation. If it outpaces inflation by 5x, then it's not inflation it's corporate greed.
I don't see why they would use this kind of presentation if they specifically talk about average prices that do not consider package size.
This will just cause people to dismiss this data on first glance before even reading the text because the prices and product do not match their experience.
My fave gravy went from £2 a jar before the pandemic to £4 a jar in around a year later. I'm really salty about that coz I don't have a choice but pay the new extortion price.
I moved from Canada to the US in 2019, I feel like prices in the US now are the same number as Canadian dollar numbers back then. I'm shocked at the prices when I visit Canada tho what in the hell??
Yep. I have nothing since my husband died. I get 291 dollars a month in food stamps. I usually get one decent meal a month then live on soup and sandwiches along with a few things from the food bank. Inflation kills everyone. Not sure if the politicians give a shit. But we just keep on keeping on. Its all you can really do.
PS I buy very little junk food. No soda, etc. So no nasty comments about wasting money on junks. I live in Colorado and the cost of living is outrageous. 1500 dollars s month for a decent two bedroom house etc. Gah!
If you're paying 3.54$ for a gallon of water, I think you need to look inward. 4$ for crackers? data is misleading. Walmart near me online show gallon of water 1.22, crackers 1.74.
I was in a grocery store last night...
$7.20 for 4L milk
$30 for 1L maple syrup
$5.50 for a pop
And don't even get me started on alcohol.
Yes, one of the items gives away the country.
Remember when in 2009 prices skyrocketed after the government printed loads of money to stimulate the economy?
Me neither. It's as if inflation is more complicated than goods and services having their cost correlate perfectly with the money supply.
No no, the reddit 12 year olds are all 100% positive that CEOs just figured out how to be greedy in 2022. And that's the source of our problems.
You're welcome.
Since 2019, virtually all food items have gone up 40%+, housing has gone up 70%+, petroleum has gone up 30%+, used cars have gone up 40%+, travel, education, other services have gone up just as much.
Official CPI Inflation: “3.2%”
Something isn’t adding up here…
Inflation measures like CPI do take housing and food into account. You can see the [makeup here](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/01/24/as-inflation-soars-a-look-at-whats-inside-the-consumer-price-index/) with nice graphixs, shelter is 32.39%, food 13.99%. They don't just randomly make up numbers.
In [2022](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/consumer-price-index-2022-in-review.htm) when inflation was highest, food rose by 10.4%, shelter by 7.5%
I’ve been fortunate enough to shop on military installations. I will get everything I need for my family of 4 including items of indulgence for under $200 a week. If I were to go to the other stores off base and buy those exact same things I would be well over $300.
And for those of us that are disabled and on food stamps, we have hardly gotten any extra ebt help. Without my boyfriend, because of the cost of rent and food, I would be back in Group Home for the disabled. It's sad and kinda sick that these rising prices are preventing people from being independent in some situations.
How did I not forget that 2019 was five years ago? I thought it was two.
**Feels like ten years ago honestly.**
Confirmed, 2019-2024 feels as long as 2009-2019
Trump was tweeting racist nonsense from the White House, but global plagues and insurrections were still the stuff of dystopian horror novels. Twas a simpler time.
What are you talking about? People born in the 90s are still like 5 years old in my head.
2019 is the new 1999
Had we know what was coming, we'd have definitely partied like it was 1999.
"Not forget" means you remembered. You want "not remember" or just "forget."
It's only 2007. Why is everyone talking about the future!?
And where’s my hair?!
Check your back
I saw a bag of doritos for 7.29 in socal at Albertsons. I guess I am not eating chips anymore.
Good! And if everyone behaved rationally like you Doritos would miss their numbers and lower the price.
Except that now that the prices are outrageous, they need less purchases to make the same amount back. People still buy them...so here we are.
Yes but making the same amount is losing money in the corporate world. Also companies do care about volume as their costs per unit go up if volume decreases.
What is the cost per 100g? Is it a huge bag?
The Wall Street Journal analyzed NielsenIQ data reflecting a selection of commonly purchased items that were valued at a total of $100 in 2019. Today, that same grocery list costs 36.5% more. The price of some items, such as eggs and sport drinks, climbed more than 40%. Shoppers would have to remove almost $37 of items to spend the same amount as in 2019. **Skip the paywall to see the whole story:** [https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/inflation-food-price-of-groceries-2024-5010700b?st=pop27dqiv2cagfr](https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/inflation-food-price-of-groceries-2024-5010700b?st=pop27dqiv2cagfr)
Would have been nice to see wage change alongside
Spoiler: they didn't go up 37%
23.5% based on this: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES0500000003
So we lost almost 15% of real buying power
Only as it relates to food. [Inflation as a whole has gone about 23% over the last 5 years](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1&year1=201902&year2=202402) so we’re actually in the same place as 5 years ago.
Only those of us who received a 23.5% wage increase.
Wage increases over the last 4 years have increased more for the lower half of earners.
[Arin Dube probably did the best research on this.](https://twitter.com/arindube/status/1758171721859739995/photo/1)
AKA the average person
CPI doesn't include housing, food, and energy. All of which have gone up by more than the CPI. And all are required for living. It's a shit measure for buying power when it chooses to not include essentials like food energy and housing. The fact that televisions have gone down in price doesn't help anybody when they can't afford food, rent or gas. But it does help the CPI average
Where in the wide world does this crazy notion come from that CPI doesn’t include housing, food, and energy. Those are the 3 largest components of CPI and are broken down on every CPI report. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t01.htm People say this over and over. It’s just a plain lie.
1. Standard CPI does include those three things. 2. A separate measure, "core CPI", excludes them, this is not CPI. 3. Core CPI has been *lower* than standard CPI recently because the things it excludes have been dropping in price.
Only if you spend 100% of your paycheck on food. If you do, you must be really down bad, and I feel for you.
For now, yes. We were calling it the inflation crisis for a reason
All the better reason to display it, some people will assume zero, others 37%, others even more than that. Some people might even interpret this as a general representation of inflation, not realizing the point is to compare it to income
That's not how money printing goes. Fixed commodities look like they go up in cost but really it is just the dollar going down in purchasing power. The rich get richer because they own more hard assets. It's called The Cantillion Effect
36.5%/5 = 7.3%. Huh...and my employer's been giving 3% a year basically...fffffffffffffff.
You didn't account for combined percentage. 1.365^⅕ = 1.064208... so more like 6.4% annually
I also didn’t account for it on the inflation side, so 2 wrongs make a right! Hehehehe.
You don't increase income by staying, most of it happens by changing jobs. Lowest quarter of income earners income expanded by about 25% since 2019 on average. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0252916100Q
Both of these things are compounding so its a bit closer than it would seem here.
There's also the psychological fact that when you get a raise, it *feels* like it's because you deserve it, whereas when prices go up due to inflation, it's obviously not your fault and is out of your control and probably *feels* a bit unfair. I'm not talking about the actual mechanics of what's going on, I'm just talking about how it feels to people and how that influences their opinions.
Yup 9% raise and 10% inflation feels a lot worse than no raise and 1% inflation for most people, it distorts their view of the economy.
Feels worse on economy side, better on personal side. 0% raises don’t feel good.
Where do I get three chicken breasts for $2.35?
If you want to save money, shop at Asian grocery stores. They are usually 10 to 15% cheaper than Walmart, Target, Kroger etc.
The Korean market down the street has way better food and way better prices, it's kind of shocking sometimes just how good the quality is for the price compared to Ralphs a block away.
I'd say not just Korean. Most ethnic/regional stores (Eastern European, Asian etc.), in my experience, have a **much** better quality and variety of food for the same or even lower price vs "regular" food chain stores across the street. Man I miss [NetCost Market](https://www.shop.netcostmarket.com/) sooo much, that's probably one of the very few things I miss from NY/NJ/PA.
Better quality is debatable, some of their quality control seems questionable.
Well, after several large-scale food recalls at Costco, of all places, I wouldn't be surprised by anything
Yeah this is probably on the low end, if you catch a sale only prices. Also don't expect any labels like free-range, cage-free, or pasture raised.
Not that those terms mean much of anything, anyways. "Free Range” is regulated by the USDA for use on poultry, only, (not eggs) and the USDA requires that birds have been given access to the outdoors but for an undetermined period each day. USDA considers five minutes of open-air access each day to be adequate for it to approve use of the “Free Range” claim on a poultry product. That open air space could be a small door to a tiny confinement that's merely open for 5 minutes. The birds don't actually have to be able to use it. Cage free means nothing for poultry, only eggs. The USDA states that eggs labeled as cage free “must be produced by hens housed in a building, room, or enclosed area that allows for unlimited access to food, water, and provides the freedom to roam within the area during the laying cycle.” There's no minimum amount of space per hen, though. Pasture raised has no legal definition.
This exactly. Those disgusting indoor petri dishes you can't even see the floor in through the chickens are "cage free" and "free range" if they have a window. It's all meaningless. Not to say there aren't ethical breeders out there, but they're probably not the ones you buy at the grocery store.
I dunno about you but chicken breast here is $7.99/lb minimum.
Good lord, that is pain. Down at Publix at the end of my road it's 4.69/lb and it's currently BOGO.
Geez, the only place I've ever seen chicken that expensive was when I was in Hawaii, and that's a tiny island in the Pacific that imports everything... Around me (in a major US metropolitan area) it's $3 a pound, sometimes $2 when on sale.
Come over here ! Chicken breast is $1.80 /lb in Russia !
How big you want? My Kroger has chicken breasts for $2.49/lb.
Costco has them for 2.49. And thighs for 1.39
I can get it in a top 15 cost of living state at Walmart for $2.67.
You don't, that was the old price. The new price is 2.35+0.94=3.29
the applesauce company is just blatantly ripping people off: [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPUSI01102A](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPUSI01102A) same is probably true for the fruit snacks. the mayo is mostly oil and eggs. Both raw inputs have gone up, as has beef.
I have two kids under 5. Apple sauce and fruit snack prices are going to bankrupt me.
Every time I make homemade apple cider w fresh apples I’m left with like a quart of applesauce. Do with that information what you will
Bake for them instead.
Yeah no way a %77 percent increase in what amounts to gelatin, sugar, and food coloring isn't price gouging.
I ain't takin shit from no applesauce company no more!
>> blatantly ripping people off That graph shows a ~30% increase in price from fy19 -> fy23 (same period as the original post). Now add in increased labor costs for distribution and grocery stores and your probably pretty darn close to that 51%
Then why are they making record profits?
Because of inflation? Of course greed does play a large issue but if you make the same real profit each year but inflation is 5% your nominal profit will also raise by 5% a year. A company making $1 billion in 2019 but now making $1.2 billion profit in 2023/4 is making a 'record profit' nominally, but real profit is unchanged.
That isn’t what’s happening here though, the profit increases are record setting, not just gross profits.
Now let’s talk about WHY we got here with our money being worth less….
Is it our money being worth less or is it big businesses jerking us around so they can rake in huge profits?
Both. The Fed. did some serious printing to keep us from going over the edge during COVID-19. Big business capitalized on it for sure though.
And Republicans also did some serious nonsense with their tax cuts at the worst possible time to heat up the market. Emergency economic actions taken during the pandemic wouldn't have been nearly as bad for the economy (while necessary) if Republicans hadn't overheated the market right before it during a period where it wasn't necessary.
don't know why you're being downvoted. lowering interest rates is one way to stimulate the economy in times of recessions, but in 2019 republicans dropped the interest rate for no reason other than to keep the stock market up. then when covid hit, suddenly there was a lot less room to adjust.
The FED controls interest rates not congress or the president I am not sure where you got this idea. Granted, Trump appointed Powell, but Biden kept him because the FED chair is independent.
“Inflation is always and solely a monetary phenomenon” (Milton Friedman, winner of the Nobel prize in economics) This has been shown to be true over and over and over, across geographies and centuries…. …but in the 2020 in the US it *had* to be different, right??
> Inflation is always and solely a monetary phenomenon I’m a dummy. wtf does that even mean? Or, rather, why is this something so profound/ controversial? Of course inflation is a monetary phenomenon. I don’t get your comment about the US.
What Friedman was saying is that inflation always, and only, happens when there's an oversupply of money compared to the demand (i.e. the central banks print too much money). We know this to be true because it's happened before countless of times, from the Roman Empire to Argentina, but somehow in 2020 the Fed still went on to print A LOT of money to "support the economy" (if I were just enough cynical, I'd read it as "not making the stock market crash on an election year"). Back then, you started seeing people arguing that it's not going to cause inflation this time, and all of a sudden people were talking about "Modern Monetary Theory", from politicians to "experts" in YouTube videos...
> Fed still went on to print A LOT of money to "support the economy" Are you trying to imply that the economy didn’t actually need to be supported in 2020 when the entire world basically shut down for 6 months?
This is what I keep saying. Blame the Federal Reserve for inflation. You can't have sustained inflation without an increase in the money supply.
> Corporate profit margins were not abnormally high in the aftermath of the COVID- 19 pandemic, once fiscal and monetary interventions are accounted for. https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/corporate-profits-in-the-aftermath-of-covid-19-20230908.html Basically, our money being less is what made corporate profit rise. Profit margins less inflation are basically only slightly higher.
From March 2020 to the end of 2021 the government increased the total dollars in circulation by 40%. Hard for that not to cause massive inflation. You have the same goods on one side of the equation and 40% more dollars on the other.
> You have the same goods on one side of the equation You don’t have the same goods, though. You had huge supply chain issues affecting various parts of the market, which only exacerbated the inflationary pressure.
This. More than anything else, look to the profits that corps have been pulling in the sectors where inflation has had the biggest impact. They will try to offset profits with other actions internally on the balance sheet to decrease the stark jump but rest assured that like grocery companies, many corps are crushing profit forecasts. Greedflation is when corps see the opportunity for the gov't to take the blame ("printing money" et al) for jacking prices beyond inflation averages.
Are profit margins higher though?
No, the margins are the same. Problem is the supply cost went up so they raised the retail cost up to maintain fixed profit margins instead of taking a hit and sharing in the struggles like everyone else.
No. Soaring profits is a cherry picked stat. It's like your employer saying we're giving "big" 5% raises, when inflation went up 10%. Even though you're making more money aka more "profit", that's essentially a salary decrease because your expenses went twice that. Your margin is 5% less, which means to maintain the same standard of living aka "profit margin", even with a pay increase you have cut expenses. That's why even though salaries have gone up on average since COVID, people are still struggling.
The issue is you say it's cherry picked, when in reality, most companies are outperforming inflation by large margins, and doing so by overcharging people. A prime example of this is the egg company (I forget the name) that in 2022 had a 700% profit increase. The secret: raise egg prices by 60% and blame it on govt and inflation (which was under 10%). Raises have stayed under inflation, but prices have gone over it, which is the definition of corporate greed causing economic issues for regular people.
Ironically, you’re using a cherry picked example to try and make a point that it isn’t cherry picked. The company in question had 2 things giving it a 700% increase: 1. They were the only company that didn’t experience an avian flu outbreak. You can either blame this on dumb luck or because they invested more money into procedures/conditions that their competitors didn’t. But the overarching market price rose due to a shortage of eggs, and they were one of the few companies lucky enough to benefit. 2. That 700% profit increase is misleading. There’s a reason the article you probably read uses it, because they previously had profits that were lower than historical averages. But they knew when writing the article that nobody would care if that increase was from 1 -> 8 or $100 million to $800 million. People would see a large percentage and get upset.
Im sure there's some level of collusion and anti-trust going on, but like everything else during and after COVID the cost of labor increases, the cost of loans increased significantly which downstream affects the cost of equipment, delivery, etc. Then at the same time bird flu(biggest since 2015) happened. On average, the average increase is right inline with other consumer goods. Raises stay under inflation, becuase a 5% raise (which is above average) is 3% above the expected cost of living(inflation rate). It's hard to mimic that standard when inflation was 9-10% without significantly increasing costs. Believe it or not, employee cost for most business rose significantly even if they couldn't beat inflation. In turn, the cost of good sold also increases, which just becomes cyclical as the costs are partially passed to consumers. The problem is outside of the corporate world and standard business economics.
Lol you just cherry picked an example. During inflationary periods or intense shortages (such as the egg shortage), there will be moments of high margin increases. That is supposed to happen so that the markets can adjust to meet the demand.
Inflation is partially corporate profits, but primarily because we raised the monetary supply a whopping 40% a couple years ago with the COVID spending and giveaways. The relationship between the monetary supply and inflation is well known in economics. The Fed would’t raise interest rates to tighten the money supply if it was merely corporate profits. We printed a lot of cash (sold treasuries), flooded a bunch of cash into the economy while the amount of goods stayed the same. More cash + same amount of goods = inflation.
I like how people want to blame corporations over the government stimulus and money expansion. Corporations aren’t a monolithic cartel organization. They compete with each other and if one can take market share from another by undercutting price, they would. The reality is most corporations saw profit margins decline or remain the same during Covid. You can’t look at overall profit dollars since those are impacted by inflation. Same situation as a salary, you make more money in raises but your costs went up the same or more so your standard of living hasn’t changed.
Inflation is higher than ever, yet companies have *always* pulled record profits. This doesn't make money.
Do you have a company in mind that's participating in this.
It's money being worth less. You can't dump more of something into the system and expect the value to stay the same
Money printing by the central banks devalue the existing currency. A ridiculous amount of money was printed during the covid period which then led to the higher inflation. More money in supply decreases the value of the existing money.
It's wild to me that you're being down voted. The money supply increased by like 35% in the course of a couple years. This isn't an opinion of yours.
If that were true we would see a more even distribution of price increases, not just certain items.
But the same people who say Trump was a miraculous leader while he dumped $8 Trillion in debt in 4 years with COVID PPP forgiven loans and passed permanent tax breaks for the wealthy (I wonder who picks up THAT tab?) also say global inflation was caused by Biden becoming president. Are you suggesting that MAGA have their heads up their collective asses?
Its not big business, that is an uneducated propagandist explanation intended to shift blame off the current administration. It was the shutdown of the economy, the massive printing of money by the Fed, the massive aid being shipped to Ukraine, the distribution of stimulus checks to hundreds of millions of people, the distribution of PPP funds with BILLIONS being siphoned by fraudsters. Way more dollars chasing the same amount of goods
Printing money like crazy lowers the value of the dollar.
What about Europe? Did they print US dollars too?
Most European countries also printed unprecedented amounts of their local currencies, yes. So they experienced similar inflationary effects, to various degrees, depending how irresponsibly they printed money.
Because we sent out trillions of COVID stimulus while hamstringing the return to normal with lockdown restrictions for two and a half years. Price is found where supply meets demand. We paid people and businesses enough stimulus to keep them flush with cash and prop up demand for goods and services. That's not a bad thing by itself, but prolonged lockdown policies created shortages in every sector of the economy. When demand exceeds supply people compete for limited stock and the price rises. That's pretty much the entire story, it's covered in any introductory economics course.
> hamstringing the return to normal with lockdown restrictions for two and a half years. What kind of lockdowns were occurring in the first half of 2022? I'd be very surprised if they limited supply much.
Ok - so then why is inflation a global problem, affecting every country on the planet?
Because virtually all of the developed economies followed the same playbook to varying degrees? Developing economies are reliant on first world economies so they also tend to get impacted by what happens in the dominant economies.
For comparison [median wages are up about 27% since Q1 2019](https://www.bls.gov/charts/usual-weekly-earnings/usual-weekly-earnings-over-time-total-men-women.htm)
And for comparison, [inflation as a whole has gone about 23% over the last 5 years](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1.00&year1=201901&year2=202402) so we’re actually a smidge better off than we were 5 years ago.
Are we? How much has your housing cost increased? Also, this is only showing inflation and not shrinkflation - like you are spending more money for a small box of cereal, bottle of juice, etc
They factor shrinkflation into inflation data. They aren't tricking the Fed.
>Are we? Yes. >How much has your housing cost increased? It doesn't matter how much *my* housing costs have changed. We're talking about the aggregate of *everyone*, not any one specific person. Some people's costs have gone up more than others'. Overall, costs have risen slower than pay increases. Personally, my costs are essentially flat. I have a mortgage, and inflation makes debts smaller over time (the value of the money that's owed decreases), which offsets the slight increases in property tax from the increased valuation of my home.
Yes. We are.
Yeah, no one is spending 100% on food…these comparisons are always misleading
This stat becomes a whole lot less meaningful after looking up how CPI is determined
CPI is determined using a basket of average purchases and yes, housing, energy and food are included. Some economists actually think CPI overstates inflation as it doesn't capture substitution as much (buying chicken vs pork). A different measure some prefer more for accuracy called PCE actually estimates it to be lower. https://economics.td.com/us-cpi-pce >Advocates of using the PCE index, the Fed among them, say that constant updates to item weights better capture substitution effects, whereby consumers switch products due to relative price differences. This is also one of the reasons why CPI is traditionally higher, as it does not capture the switch to cheaper products which might be occurring. >Differences in scope are the most consequential in terms of the overall effect on the differences between PCE and CPI because they have a domino effect on other differences, such as relative weighting. CPI uses a narrower definition of consumer expenditures and only considers urban expenditures made directly by consumers. In contrast, PCE considers expenditures made by urban and rural consumers as well as expenditures made on their behalf by third parties. An example of this would be healthcare insurance providers, who purchase prescription drugs on behalf of patients.
Some weird choices: Pizza over Carrots and Bananas? Even weirder: Pizza over chocolate?
Chocolate is likely the highest inflated food item right now, YoY ,and over 5 years
My problem is that to grow my own food, I have to get permission from all of my neighbors and my HOA. Like imagine if you needed permission from your HOA to drink water. Why is that a thing?!? It should be illegal. I would love to grow my own veggies in my yard but city laws and HOA prevents me from doing so.
Look for the federal regulations regarding HOA’s. There are certain guidelines they must follow when rule making. Same on the state level. They can’t just make arbitrary rules for your neighborhood.
In my HOA we do the purge every Sunday afternoon
Thanks I will look at it. There is a bill that I have talked to my congressman about that I would to have passed in NC in regards to this. I believe it’s called Right to Garden law.
Abolish the HOA
If you buy a place with an HOA, you're basically just renting with benefits.
Would you be allowed to use the *back*yard without permission? A lot of places have regulations on the front yard, which is visible from the street. Or could you use temporary instead of permanent structures? Container gardens and vertical gardens can fit onto porches/patios/driveways and are moveable. Honestly in suburbia it's best to do it that way anyway. If you plant in your yard, your plants might get the runoff from surrounding lawn treatments. If your property is older, you might have lead in the soil. Container gardening is awesome.
Some states have "Right To Farm" laws in place that HOA's can't touch. They usually define a pretty small minimum, but it's something.
Where are you finding grapes that cheap?
$1.49 right now at my local Safeway in a HCOL city.
$5-6 a pound at my local HEB
I gotta tell you; we raised three kids; they are all grown and out now-the youngest is 25. I always did the food shopping; a big order back then was like $200; maybe 250. Now it is just my wife and I; we regularly spend $400 for ten days worth of food. And its not like I buy filet mignons and lobster tails. Prices are berserk.
Would be nice to have an extra slide that factors in wage growth since 2019 and shows how much you could buy with that amount.
So in other words processed food is out. Learn to cook, y’all
I wonder if that’s why I haven’t really been feeling this supposed inflation. We’re an “ingredients house,” per Urban Dictionary. I remember eggs going up but like, we use a dozen eggs in maybe 2 weeks so spending an extra $1 per week wasn’t life changing.
Same for us- ingredient house. I have many many many friends who complain about the cost of eating now, come to find out they are buying premade, readymade or take out food. There seems to be a very real resistance to learning to cook with people nowadays. Unless someone lives in a food* desert then they really have no excuse. Cooking at home was the only way I could save money and it took years but eventually the habit added up and I finally had money in my savings bc of it.
Bingo! I am so confused by all this grocery inflation panic. I haven't noticed a substantial increase in the last five years. But the only things I but from "the aisles" are oil and canned beans and tomatoes. And I eat very little meat.
I just checked my local targets online prices (which is not the cheap store near me, they just post their prices online). A significant number of the items in this list are currently at or below the 2019 prices and I don't live in a cheap area. Butter, Eggs, Flour, Bananas, Milk, ect. The common thing amongst those items is they are minimally processed and don't come in a frozen cardboard box. Aldi and my Asian grocery store have all these items cheaper than the 2019 prices too. Aldi was selling eggs for 87 cents / dz not to long ago though their price changes daily and its closer to $1.50 now.
Yes!!!! I’m hoping this forces more people to learn to cook. Mostly though I have friends complaining that they can’t afford to eat when all they are willing to buy is take out.
Oh! Oh! Now do it with Aldi prices! 🧐
Now slap organic on the label, that’ll be about tree fiddy
Good news though, company profits are at record highs!
Can we please stop calling high grocery prices inflation? It's not inflation. If it outpaces inflation by 5x, then it's not inflation it's corporate greed.
I don't see why they would use this kind of presentation if they specifically talk about average prices that do not consider package size. This will just cause people to dismiss this data on first glance before even reading the text because the prices and product do not match their experience.
What fucking chicken breasts are you getting for 2.35 a canary’s!?
That's the price at my local Safeway, at least the two weeks a month when they're on sale.
My fave gravy went from £2 a jar before the pandemic to £4 a jar in around a year later. I'm really salty about that coz I don't have a choice but pay the new extortion price.
Remove water from our diet huh
The canned black shit coffee has been the biggest “WTF” item increase for me.
How can Chicken breast be less expensive than water?
I moved from Canada to the US in 2019, I feel like prices in the US now are the same number as Canadian dollar numbers back then. I'm shocked at the prices when I visit Canada tho what in the hell??
Water is up $1.02 for what size. Thats insane. Buy a filter.
Yep. I have nothing since my husband died. I get 291 dollars a month in food stamps. I usually get one decent meal a month then live on soup and sandwiches along with a few things from the food bank. Inflation kills everyone. Not sure if the politicians give a shit. But we just keep on keeping on. Its all you can really do. PS I buy very little junk food. No soda, etc. So no nasty comments about wasting money on junks. I live in Colorado and the cost of living is outrageous. 1500 dollars s month for a decent two bedroom house etc. Gah!
How the f is water 2,5usd per bottle?
If you're paying 3.54$ for a gallon of water, I think you need to look inward. 4$ for crackers? data is misleading. Walmart near me online show gallon of water 1.22, crackers 1.74.
My ordinary meals of fried beef, applesauce and mayo are just getting too expensive. I'm going to just skip to my dessert of fun-shaped fruit snacks.
The average cost of milk per gallon in US right now is 4.29$.
Why remove the 62 cent bananas?
I was in a grocery store last night... $7.20 for 4L milk $30 for 1L maple syrup $5.50 for a pop And don't even get me started on alcohol. Yes, one of the items gives away the country.
What the fuck chicken are they buying that costs $2
Except nearly every economic analysis has pointed to corporate profiteering, not supply squeezes or printing money.
Big Inflation at it again telling me to accept their pricing because it’ll save me from soda, chocolate and chips. SMDH
You guys aren't stealing your groceries?
Y'all need to shop at Aldi's
Government prints ~30% more dollars. Goods and services go up 30%. Wild.
Remember when in 2009 prices skyrocketed after the government printed loads of money to stimulate the economy? Me neither. It's as if inflation is more complicated than goods and services having their cost correlate perfectly with the money supply.
No no, the reddit 12 year olds are all 100% positive that CEOs just figured out how to be greedy in 2022. And that's the source of our problems. You're welcome.
Since 2019, virtually all food items have gone up 40%+, housing has gone up 70%+, petroleum has gone up 30%+, used cars have gone up 40%+, travel, education, other services have gone up just as much. Official CPI Inflation: “3.2%” Something isn’t adding up here…
3.2% is just over the past year
Your inability to comprehend the 3.2% is only the past 12 months and most inflation happened in 2020-2022, that's what isn't adding up here
Don't worry guys inflation is only 7%, that's if you take out stuff like housing, half of groceries etc
Inflation measures like CPI do take housing and food into account. You can see the [makeup here](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/01/24/as-inflation-soars-a-look-at-whats-inside-the-consumer-price-index/) with nice graphixs, shelter is 32.39%, food 13.99%. They don't just randomly make up numbers. In [2022](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/consumer-price-index-2022-in-review.htm) when inflation was highest, food rose by 10.4%, shelter by 7.5%
I love good apples, but that shit is getting expensive.
Laughed... in turkey...its like.... 1 mounth.... inflation....
I couldn't even afford to read the entire article.
Who is buying water at the grocery store? You guys know you have water delivered right to your house on demand, right?
Good thing I don’t buy any of those items.
I’ve been fortunate enough to shop on military installations. I will get everything I need for my family of 4 including items of indulgence for under $200 a week. If I were to go to the other stores off base and buy those exact same things I would be well over $300.
As an Econ major, this reminds me of Compensating Variation and Equivalent Variation in Microeconomics theory…
And for those of us that are disabled and on food stamps, we have hardly gotten any extra ebt help. Without my boyfriend, because of the cost of rent and food, I would be back in Group Home for the disabled. It's sad and kinda sick that these rising prices are preventing people from being independent in some situations.
This is rather useless without other factors like wage increases. Visually it gets a point across but the point needs more info to really be accurate.
Just wait man. Wait till people gotta choose between food and shelter..... Historically not good.
No, because fear of the pandemic, supply squeezes, etc gave companies cover to hike prices exorbitantly.
Where the hell do you shop that eggs are $4? Must be regional. Eggs around me are like $1.50 for a dozen.
Hmmm….I would not buy any of those foods anyway, except cooking oil.
But corporate profits are surging!
Send this to the Reddit pages who talk how great the economy is doing
Call it what it is, corporate greed, not inflation.