by Frank Holmes, reporter
President Joe Biden has found an unconventional answer to America’s obesity epidemic: Make people so poor they can’t afford food.
A disturbing new poll shows a surprising number of people have had to cut back how much they buy at the store to compensate for sky-high inflation caused by Biden’s free-spending economic policies.
In all, 82 percent of Americans have said they’ve tried to save money at the grocery store, due to rising prices and steady paychecks. The biggest way they’ve changed their behavior is by buying less.
Three out of every four Americans say inflation forced them to cut back on how much food they bought last month—the biggest jump on their survey.
Call it the Biden Diet. And it’s only getting worse. The 72 percent of Americans who told the Morning Consult poll they buy fewer items is a massive surge from the 45 percent of Americans who said they’re tightening their belts in a USA Today survey in July.
“The share of grocery shoppers who said they often purchased fewer items to save on their grocery bills climbed from 15% in October 2021 to 24% last month,” according to a Morning Consult poll. “Meanwhile, the share buying items in bulk to save money stayed relatively stable over the same period, indicating this is not a case of people making fewer purchases but in larger quantities.”
Shoppers are most worried about the cost of dairy products, beverages, and fruit.
The number of people saying they are “very concerned” about food costs is up almost 10 percent in a year, and they’re spending accordingly—even if it means their stomachs churn louder than usual in the afternoon.
In fact, inflation has hit so hard that it’s made more and more Americans afraid they’ll starve to death. “The share saying they are often or sometimes worried that their food will run out before they have enough money to buy more increased from 35% last October to 42% in September.”
The groups being hardest hit voted for Biden, the poll found. “This sentiment is particularly prevalent among millennials, urban consumers and those making less than $50,000 annually.”
But this isn’t just a case of Biden voters getting their comeuppance. The generation recently polled to be the most Republican has suffered the most. “Gen Xers, not younger generations, are the most likely to report buying fewer items,” the poll said. “Financial stress is weighing heavily on these adults.”
But the survey shows Americans of all backgrounds, ages, and incomes are now involuntarily watching their weight on the Biden diet. “Each demographic increasingly reports purchasing fewer items,” the poll states—the poor cut back, but so did people making more than $100,000.
All Americans are affected by Bidenflation, with inflation reaching a 40-year high of eight percent… and food rising higher yet.
The cost of eating at “rose 13.0 percent over the last 12 months,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The price for eating out also increased higher than the rate of inflation (8.5 percent) over the last year.
It’s not just food where Americans are trying to save costs. First, they cut obvious items like high-end fashion goods. Then they turned to entertainment, with 37 percent saying they plan to cancel one or all of their subscriptions to streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, or Disney+. (They don’t have to worry about CNN+; no one ever subscribed.)
But pretty soon, Americans started cutting gasoline. 45 percent of Americans say they are driving less today than they did before the pandemic because of high prices, according to a poll from the National Association of Convenience Stores—and even more (53 percent) said they plan to fill up the tank less this year.
And now, they plan to have full stomachs less often.
The same thing happened in inflation-ravaged Venezuela, where the average citizen lost 19 pounds due to grocery spikes. As socialist policies destroyed the country, some had to resort to eating dogs, or even breaking into zoos to eat exotic animals in order to stay alive.
Americans aren’t to that extreme yet…but then, Biden hasn’t passed the vast majority of his agenda, either.
One thing is clear: Biden’s tax-and-spend policies are making life hard to swallow.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”