Over Thanksgiving, liberal pundits mocked a story about the rising price of beets, pointing to the low rate of overall inflation overall.
However, it’s not just about beets.
Americans are spending more of their income on food now than at any point since the early 1990s, according to USDA data reviewed earlier this month by the Wall Street Journal.
In 1991, consumers were spending 11.3 percent of their disposable incomes on food. Three decades later, consumers spent 11.3 percent of their disposable incomes on food. That figure comes from 2022, the most recent year for which the USDA has released data.
“The last time Americans spent this much of their money on food, George H.W. Bush was in office, ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ was in theaters and C+C Music Factory was rocking the Billboard charts,” two Journal reporters explained.
As of January, restaurant prices had risen by 5.1 percent over the last year, amid high demand for labor. By contrast, overall prices had risen just 3.1 percent.
Grocery prices fared slightly better. They rose only 1.2 percent… but they look unlikely to go down.
According to one expert, food prices have historically resisted deflation.
Steve Cahillane, the CEO of snack manufacturer Kellanova, explained the historical trends in an interview with the paper.
“They tend to be sticky,” Cahillane said, referring to food prices.
“If you look historically after periods of inflation, there’s really no period you could point to where [food] prices go back down.”
President Joe Biden has accused the food companies of price gouging. In one viral video posted to his Instagram, the president discussed the shrinking sizes of food containers.
“As an ice cream lover, what makes me the most angry is that ice cream containers have actually shrunk in size, but not in price,” Biden said in the video.
David Chavern, CEO of the Consumer Brands Association, slammed Biden for the video. Rejecting charges of shrinkflation, Chavern claims to have been providing consumers with a wider array of portion sizes at a wider array of price points.
While these CEOs argue with the president’s Instagram post, Americans are pinching pennies to pay for groceries… not just for beets.
Take a look —
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The Horn editorial team