It's Been 30 Years Since Food Ate Up This Much of Your Income

It's Been 30 Years Since Food Ate Up This Much of Your Income(wsj.com)

46 points by qclibre22 2 years ago | 16 comments

janalsncm 2 years ago |

I’ve also noticed a lot of places with fewer employees running the whole place. There are shops I’ve casually walked into and left immediately due to the line. My time is worth something, and I consider making me wait as an extra hidden tax.

bagful 2 years ago | |

As a single person who eats out far too often, I've observed a general decline of commercial eateries over the past year in staffing, ingredient quality, and menu offerings. It's back to organic PB&J's for me.

lp0_on_fire 2 years ago | |

We've got most (all?) of the major pharmacy chains around us and each one staffs the same way: One, maybe two employees on the sales floor responsible for stocking shelves and manning the cash registers.

Behind the pharmacy counter though, there are usually more. However in my experience even with more people they're slower than ever.

alephnerd 2 years ago | | |

Pharmacy counter employees are different from conscience store employees (like employed by different organizations within Safeway or the like), but even they are swamped as these ops are barebones

phone8675309 2 years ago | | |

This was my experience in the mid to late 1990s.

poulsbohemian 2 years ago |

I know rice and beans can get old really quickly, but... so much of food expense comes down to what you choose to buy. In my grocery store, pork has been super cheap, but bell peppers are crazy expensive. I buy the peppers anyway because they are a healthy, tasty option. When we consider food - especially if we are going to compare to 30 years ago - we have so many more, and more healthy options today than the past. I was in high school before I'd had anything other than velveta, cheddar, or generic "swiss" cheese. Why? I don't recall there being any other options at our grocery store - and my family was relatively well off compared to others. I've tried explaining the sugary, processed crap of the 1980s - white bread, oscar meyer bologna, kraft cheese, sugary drinks - to my kids and they sit in awe as they snack on their brie. Truly, the range of cuisines and types of food available to us today even in middle America is absolutely astounding - and unsustainable. You can't tell me it makes any sense at all that I can get tropical fruits in a middle America grocery store in the middle of winter.

hmcq6 2 years ago | |

> pork has been super cheap

The meat industry is subsidized so we end up paying for it in other ways.

But rising prices shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. We still use fossil fuels to transport practically all our food. Every increase in fuel cost will be passed on to the customer.

In some cases farmers are chasing profits and competing for resources in resource insecure areas.

I keep seeing products "produced in Israel" despite a "war" going on. There's a war in Ukraine, violence in Congo, a civil warn in Sudan. Russia is under heavy sanction. All of these have impacts on the markets.

And how are the bees doing? Has anyone checked on the bees?

poulsbohemian 2 years ago | | |

>And how are the bees doing? Has anyone checked on the bees?

Generally speaking you want to wait for days when it is in the 50sF before you check your bees this time of year. I am hearing in some places because it’s been a mild winter people are starting to check… I think my last hive was a dead out. For many northern beekeepers it will be April before we start new hives of any kind

phone8675309 2 years ago | |

Beans, rice, seasonings, frozen vegetables, and cheese will get you through a lot pretty cheaply.

Though speaking from inside the US, by all measures a wealthy country, the fact that anybody has to worry about food security is a gigantic shame.

ProllyInfamous 2 years ago | | |

WalMart's bell peppers keep getting smaller, and more expensive... luckily, they stock a packaged bundle (of about a dozen) "sweet peppers" which costs under $3.

I dice these, with an onion, and then freeze the 3/4's I don't use in the present dish. This way, they'll "keep" forever, and I don't have to chop but 25% of the time (for freshies).

Having been poor for the majority of my life (until just two years ago), please don't hesitate to ask for more "hack$."

h2odragon 2 years ago |

https://archive.is/IQlEi

kermatt 2 years ago |

> While commodities such as corn, wheat, coffee beans and chicken have gotten cheaper, prices for sugar, beef and french fries are still high or rising.

Are french fries a commodity?

For non-economists to try and understand the actual differences between rising supply costs vs. profit seeking (or "growth" by simply raising prices), weird metric mixing makes it harder.

mrguyorama 2 years ago | |

It gets way easier if you look at just a few things: Compare the price of a bag of potatoes, a store brand bag of potato chips, and a bag of Lays. The bag of Lays has doubled in price in a year, the store brand has only gone up about 30 cents. They literally come from the same factory most of the time, so if rising labor or process input costs were to blame, the generic chips would see the same price increase, as stores do not sell generic items at a loss. Instead, we see the name brand has increased a magnitude more than the generic brand. This is only explainable as greed.

The grocery price increases have been significantly targeted. The more processed a food, the more its price has increased, despite the raw ingredients not getting that much more expensive. It's also funny they say prices of beef is rising, as it's still $8 a pound for a Ribeye steak at my local supermarket.

Pepsico has absolutely gone bonkers with greed. Flavored water has doubled in price, and I promise you none of the ingredients or mostly automated production line from 1975 got more expensive suddenly.

ProllyInfamous 2 years ago |

From 1896 - 1971, a can of Cambell's 11oz Tomato Soup cost between 10-12¢

Yesterday, I purchased one (at Aldi Chattanooga) for $1.26

bombcar 2 years ago | |

According to the inflation calculator, 12 cents in 1971 is 91 cents now, so it's gone up a bit more than inflation.

For the hundred years before that, it was slowly going down in price.