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Americans Cut Grocery Costs as Food Prices Hit 50-Year High
Shoppers are switching to coupons, store brands and cheaper stores as grocery costs rise 33% since 2019, government figures show.
Americans are overhauling grocery shopping routines as they absorb the largest price jump in a half-century. Households are hunting for discounts, switching to store brands, and turning to food banks to manage surging costs.
Geopolitical instability in the Middle East and Ukraine, combined with pandemic-era supply chain snarls, has accelerated food price inflation this year. These factors drove production declines and raised transportation expenses, making affordability a central midterm election issue.
Government figures show buying food to eat at home has become 33% more expensive since 2019. In Texas, Ada Torres, 60, described meat as a luxury with five pounds of ground beef costing almost $20, while milk in Hawaii now reaches $9 a gallon.
To navigate financial pressure, families are developing new household strategies including couponing and splitting shopping trips between stores. Residents in San Francisco increasingly rely on food banks and the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to secure daily meals.
While average weekly earnings have risen slightly faster than grocery costs since 2019, household budgets remain strained by housing and electricity expenses. Jared Bernstein, a senior policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy, noted median wage data often masks families' capacity to absorb price hikes.