"Rising prices at the grocery store and restaurants don’t impact Americans evenly. Low-income consumers are hit much harder because they must spend a much larger share of their income to afford the basics.
In fact, people in the bottom 20% of earners, whose income is about $14,000 a year, spend 25% of their money on groceries, compared with 3.5% for those in the top 20%, with annual income of about $244,000, the Groundwork Collective found."
People are really feeling it. Not surprising many here aren’t as affected and perhaps shrug it off.
We’re semi-affluent, and we still feel it. We have a daughter starting college in the fall, and it’s going to be a big financial hit, because we decided to do it without accumulating debt. We thought about downsizing, but that would put us in a much worse neighborhood. We could shop at cheaper “supercenters” to save some money. That was fine in my younger days, but my older self is more sensitive to diet changes.
you two need to get with the program. Paul Krugman/NYT says everything is great. And if it’s not, the BLS & Dept of Ag, under Biden’s appointees, are wrong.
Since Covid I started grocery shopping online for staples (Green Giant is Green Giant, Jiff is Jiff, etc) and let Walmart fill up my trunk - then head to Publix for my meat, deli, and produce. I stop at Costco less than 1 time a month for 2 rotisserie chickens that I debone and vacuum pack in 6 oz bags and freeze and then make chicken stock in my instant pot from the bones. Depending on sales Walmart and Costco compete for my paper products. Yes, I’m cheaper, but wiser too.
The Fed stopped raising rates too early, IMO, and now they are stuck. Cannot increase rates without crashing the market. So, the only lever they have left is money supply, i.e., stop printing money by allowing the maturing bonds to roll off their balance sheet.
The worry I have is that there’s 10x the amount of money circulating on the balance sheet than there was in the 2008 crash. This isn’t going to end well.
The problem is not only that Jay Powell blinked when he stopped the rate hikes, but the Fed has also planned to slow the roll-off. Now, something has to reverse course. And that will be a PR nightmare, as well as market disaster. (It all started when they came up with a 2% inflation target out of whole cloth – the goldilocks theory of economics.)
“Federal Reserve officials neared agreement last month on a plan to slow the runoff of their $7.4 trillion in asset holdings, according to minutes of their meeting released Wednesday.”
The cost of auto insurance in the US rose more than 22% in the 12 months that ended in March, the biggest annual jump since 1976. Rates are up 43.7% since January 2020, making car insurance premiums one of the bigger contributors to high inflation.
I live in a suburb of Philly. I just saw that watermelons are priced at $12. Yes, $12. Of all grocery items that have caused me to be stunned, this is the pinnacle!
I looked up watermelon prices at my nearest supermarket. They are:
Full size – $13
Mini – $6
This doesn’t strike me as an especially poor price compared to other fruits since watermelons are much larger. A large watermelon weighs on average ~20lb, so $13 works out to $13/20lb = $0.65/lb. In terms of price per lb, watermelon may be the least expensive fruit sold at my supermarket.
Watermelon is my absolute favorite. During the summer I buy them constantly. But I do only buy in season. This is the most expensive I have ever seen them out of season at my grocery store.
Traveling to California with our Tesla- stopped at Dairy Queen- for lunch while charging in walking distance-$22 (small chicken nuggets and drink) and $29 f(salad and drink)! Clearly taking advantage of Tesla people. No prices on the board listed. We didn’t do that again- stopped on the road to the charger for $12 Taco Bell and $12 chipotle.
