Is Eating at Home Costing You More?
Food prices have jumped the most since 1974, when double-digit inflation became a national concern. But inflation isn’t a worry this time as prices for just about everything else are diving. New inflation numbers out Tuesday from the Labor Department offer a window on how consumers are coping in the COVID-19 era. And the bottom line is that we’re snacking more — and paying more for a lot of food — as we shop more at our local grocery stores.
Overall, consumer prices were down 0.8% last month — the sharpest drop since the Great Recession in 2008. But food prices at the grocery store rose 2.6% — the biggest jump in nearly 50 years. The price of pasta and rice bubbled up 2.5% in April. Hamburger prices ground up 4.8%. And anyone who bought cookies had to lay out 5.1% more dough.
Excerpted from NPR
